Why Author Coaching?
As a faculty member with Seton Hill University’s Master’s in Fine Arts of Writing Popular Fiction program, I’ve mentored dozens of students through the process of writing novels. My goal is to make my students and coaching clients the most self-sufficient writers they are capable of being. Yes, everyone needs an editor, but my hope is that you will better understand the art and craft of writing fiction and will spend less time learning what works and doesn’t on your own.
What Do You Get?
- Pages with detailed line notes
- Editorial letter detailing the overall effectiveness of the storytelling, style, and mechanics
- exercises and/or links to online resources
- recommended reading, if applicable
- an hour of consulting time per 7,000 words–ask me questions via email or Google Hangouts
- additional consulting time billable at $20 an hour
How Does This Work?
Rather than submitting an entire manuscript, you send me sections of your novel, and I will treat them as I treat submissions from my MFA students. I’ll address the three levels of of editing that I would normally treat separately when working with editorial clients.
I’ll mark up the pages extensively, dealing with storytelling, style, and grammar matters. I’ll tend to favor embedded comments and asking questions over tracking changes in order to make it more of a teaching relationship. If we work on more than one submission, I will refer back to my notes on the early submissions so that I can remark on growth and how well the chapters work together.
Working on a manuscript chunk of roughly 5,000 to 8,000 words a month allows me to see enough work to provide meaningful feedback without its being too overwhelming of a block of feedback for you to digest. Send a submission that contains enough chapters to fall in that range, and I’ll return my feedback within a week (typical response time).
What’s This Cost?
All this for $0.03 a word.
You’re getting editorial attention on the developmental, substantive, and copy editing levels plus personalized guidance, all of which will help you shave years of trial and error off of your writing learning curve.