Writing assistance

When you need more help with your text than editing can provide, I offer several flavours of writing assistance. Please note that the same terms are sometimes used to refer to different services by different people, so I encourage you to read the descriptions below to ensure you're getting the right product.

Book doctoring

An extension of developmental editing services, book doctoring provides extensive hands-on assistance in fixing and improving a manuscript. It is, in a word, having the editor rewrite the manuscript and implement the developmental feedback directly, instead of the author making the suggested changes.

Book doctoring services can be enlisted as a follow-up service after a developmental edit, or on its own, in which case it will start with a thorough review, to provide an outline of the work to be done. If the plan is approved by the author, the editor can then proceed with the work.

Outline filling

When contracted to fill out an outline, the editor takes an existing skeleton of the text, and adds the meat of the actual text and all the small details that differentiate a piece of prose from its synopsis.

This can be a great way to speed a text along, or to add a little flair by another hand while still keeping it your work. It's also an excellent option for fleshing out supporting material for your main body of work, e.g. an in-universe book for the characters to read.