Editing & Writing Samples

This hilarious clean romance is set at BYU, where a young woman feels doomed to always be the last girlfriend before her dream guy finds his "true love" over and over. When a snarky, cocky young man starts pursuing her, she figures the sooner she dates him, the sooner he'll move on to find his "true love." Her plan works just fine—until she realizes maybe he is her dream guy after all.

​

My developmental edits both in the editorial letter and in the comments throughout the manuscript focused on fully developing the themes of the story and fixing pacing and structural issues. My in-line substantive edits reworded awkward phrasing and helped the narration and dialogue flow while maintaining the overall humorous tone of the story.

One change in Mr. Collins' past can make him a very different character than Jane Austen penned. Perhaps he could even become a trusted brother to the Bennet sisters!

​

The author already had a largely positive response from her beta readers for her first draft of The Sins of Their Fathers, so she felt confident that she didn't need an in-depth developmental edit. As I evaluated her Pride and Prejudice retelling, I focused on developing the structure of the plot; character arcs of the main protagonists; pacing, point of views, and description; tone, tropes, and themes; and consistency and historical accuracy.

Lamil traumatically loses his best friend Baleth to a necromancer terrorizing the countryside. But when Baleth's wife, Sellah, Lamil's other best friend, decides to go retrieve the body, Lamil won't let his fears keep him from helping and protecting Sellah as much as he can—but he may need to overcome some prejudices along the way.

The author originally requested substantive edits for this short story, but I'm glad he agreed to a developmental edit first, because his story grew stronger for it. I addressed various plot holes, underdeveloped aspects of the characters, and buried themes. I also gave suggestions for fleshing out the worldbuilding and preventing reader confusion at key points in the story.

Allister Banks is an alligator—and a disgraced relic hunter . . .
But he's got one last chance to make things right. The race has begun for the Ruby Blade—an ancient sword rumored to grant its possessor unfathomable power. And Allister’s only hope to fix his troubled past is to recover it before his ruthless competitors do.

​

This book was already incredibly well written and polished when he hired my to copyedit it. Still, he was impressed with how much I was able to do with his manuscript because of my painstaking attention to detail. I not only caught typos and added important consistency but I smoothed out a few passages of overly expository dialogue.

Lamil traumatically loses his best friend Baleth to a necromancer terrorizing the countryside. But when Baleth's wife, Sellah, Lamil's other best friend, decides to go retrieve the body, Lamil won't let his fears keep him from helping and protecting Sellah as much as he can—but he may need to overcome some prejudices along the way.

My substantive edit included a light copyedit, so you'll see this sample address some grammar and usage issues, especially dialogue punctuation mechanics. Overall, the substantive editing in this sample really exemplifies how sentences and paragraphs might be restructured to improve flow, pacing, and emotional impact.

The everyday life of a Professional Hero may be full of beasts and monsters to slay, but this knight in shining armor doesn't always carry away the fair princess after rescuing her.

For this edit, the author asked particularly for my feedback on grammar and the flow of the short story. This sample especially features edits on punctuation such as dialogue mechanics. I also included various light substantive edits to improve word choice and left one or two developmental suggestions in the comments to improve the pacing of the dialogue and deliver a more satisfying ending to the readers.