Hello all!

As many of you know, I’m a part-time editor of non-fiction and writer of all things fiction, but I would love to get more experience editing creative fiction. I don’t consider myself experienced enough to charge for this, and I also understand paying for editing or feedback can be a huge barrier for improving a manuscript! For these reasons I’m offering my services for the low, low cost of absolutely free :-)

My credentials:

• I’ve been a creative writer for over a decade and have written countless novels, short stories, and other forms of fiction.
• I have been published several times in magazines, newspapers, and literary journals.
• I am an editor for a newspaper and have been an editorial intern at a magazine, an editor for a literary journal and also a marketing intern at a publishing house.
• I have a diploma in filmmaking and a degree in Communications studies.

Here’s what I can do:

• Give feedback on the first 30-ish pages of a novel, short story, or other work (including fan fiction!)
• Edit/copy edit up to 30 pages.
• Look over and give feedback on outlines, character building, world building (or all three).
• Edit and provide feedback on academic/school work or essay planning (though I can’t write any of it for you)
• Offer peptalks and encouragement!

What I can’t do

• Smut or otherwise explicit/spicy romances, sorry.
• Poetry (I’m useless with it, I don’t think I’d be very helpful in this area)
• Writing without any content/trigger warnings (I am able to provide help here, you just need to add the warnings first)
• AI-generated work
• Write the work for you

Interested?

Send me a DM with what you need help on, the breadth of the project, and if not Discord, where you’d prefer to chat instead!

Questions? Send them my way through comment, dm, or ask box and I’m happy to answer!

              This is an interesting thing I’ve noticed recently that’s largely intuitive, but still important to make a note of. If you’re in first person or third person limited, your POV character can see certain things on other people, and may notice those same visual symptoms on themselves, but they can only feel things on themselves.

              Okay, for example, if your POV character is making a subconscious expression, they wouldn’t know to describe it to themselves as the voice of the narrator. For example, “She woke up with bags under her eyes.” Sounds very strange, because when you wake up, you don’t know necessarily how you look until you get to a mirror. Versus, “She woke up, crossing the room to her mirror and noticed deep bags hanging under her eyes.”

              Similarly, “Her heart galloped behind her ribs, warmth filling her chest, her eyes bright.” The detail about her eyes stands out, as how would she know something so visual she couldn’t see? Maybe instead, I’d write, “her eyes wide.” Because that’s something that conveys the visual of bright eyes, but put in language that you could actually feel.

              Similarly, your character can see some symptoms of emotions on other people, but they can’t feel the emotions of other characters (unless of course there’s some sort of magic or specialness important to your plot that allows them to do this). So, “She watched a frown burrow itself between his brows,” makes total sense, but, “she watched as anger lit up deep in his chest” sounds a bit less sensical—we can only really guess how other people are feeling based on their expressions. To make the second sentence work, I would write, “She watched a frown burrow itself between his brows, frustration clear across his tight face.”

              Let’s go back to my Symptoms vs Afflictions post, but instead I’ll divide the symptoms based on things you can see and notice, versus stuff you can only feel:

              This isn’t to say that the blue column is just for describing other people, and the orange column is just for describing the POV character, just that you should pay attention to your visual details for your POV characters. Is the thing they’re describing something they could notice on themselves, or is it something someone else would have to point out to them?

              And are they describing how other people are feeling? Or trying their best to interpret their expression and body language?

              Ideally, your descriptions would include a little bit from both columns.

              What are your thoughts?

              Another way to think of show don’t tell is to describe the symptoms rather than tell the affliction. You could say someone was close to fainting—or you could describe their symptoms and trust the readers to understand what they mean: the world swirled around her head, her ears beginning to hum lowly, then louder, increasing into a high-pitched ring. She took a deep breath, her stomach turning over itself. Etc.

              Symptoms can also mean the lump in your throat as a “symptom” of being sad enough to cry, or the warmth of your face as a “symptom” of embarrassment.

              That might sound a bit silly, but I find it really helpful when I’m reading over mine or others work and looking for those places where showing would be better than telling. Have you described the symptoms, or just told the affliction?

              Here’s a short list of “afflictions” and their associated “symptoms” to get you started (but make sure to explore how different characters express different afflictions, even in more odd or unusual ways!)

Any symptoms I missed?            

The first thing to know about backstory is that it is revealed when it is needed, not before to set up when it’ll be needed, but the moment it is necessary. I talk more about this advice here, but that’s the gist. So assuming the following moments require necessary backstory, here’s some places and ways to reveal backstory,

1. As related to a place

Settings have the ability to carry a whole lot of history. People can forget or move on but a stain on a blanket will always be a stain, a bedroom—however changed—will always be part of a house (unless you want to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory it). Taking your characters to the scene of their histories, allowing them access to the setting where they first experienced something is an easy way to share what that place means to them.

2. As related to a person

While friends of course hold a lot of history together, this works best if it’s a person your character hasn’t seen in a spell. Where maybe the last time they interacted was the backstory you want to share. Or otherwise their long-term friend does something out of the ordinary that reminds them of “the event”

3. As related to a conflict or emotions

A fight may remind your character of another, or even just a feeling—“the last time he had experienced (something) was (backstory).”

4. In conversation

While your character may not spill all the details of their backstory to anyone who asks, someone asking them a pointed question, “so, where’d you grow up?” or “why haven’t you mentioned your parents at all?” would inspire them to think about the event, making an easy share to the readers as well.

Important to note that how they respond to this question verbally tells a whole lot about how they feel about their past. What goes unsaid is far more important than what they actually say (check out Subtext here)

Anything I missed?

              I love a good monster—who doesn’t? Monsters can be easy antagonists in survival, horror, fantasy (or really any genre) to pose a threat to characters and incite conflict to keep the plot plotting. So how do we create a believable monster? The key is in consideration of the creature’s biology.

Before we get into it, I have an important point:

1. Yes, make them monstrous—but don’t vilify human features

One trend I really hate right now is analog horror using “fake humans” as dangerous, horrible monsters. While I love a doppelganger, what this genre has unfortunately really leaned into is using physical deformations and other natural human features to distinguish between the “good, safe” people and the “bad, dangerous” people.

I’m sure you can see why that’s not okay. Good, loveable, safe, kind and real people have physical deformities, and by only portraying them as evil or monsters in media, these tropes perpetuate harmful thinking towards disability and deformities. Media has never really made progress in being rid of this stereotype, and unfortunately it seems we’re going in the complete opposite direction we should be.

Don’t vilify normal human features. Please.

Okay onto the actual creation:

2. What, how, and how often do they eat?

Likely the first thing you’ll consider when creating a monster, and usually what determines if they’re a threat to humans or relatively harmless.

• Is your creature a carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore?
• How much do they have to eat? Don’t be fooled by bigger=more, hummingbirds have to eat up to 3x their body weight in food per day because they burn calories, and lions can use one hunt to sustain them for several days.
• How do they consume food? Do they have sharp teeth, or tear apart with their claws first? If they’re an omnivore, they need flat, strong molars for breaking down plants as well as sharp front teeth for meat. Do they consume via mouth, tube, or other appendage?
• Determine their usual diet when there are no human characters around to hunt.
• How do they hunt? Do they have the ability to “clever girl” their prey? What do they use to their advantage in their environment?

2. Where do they live?

• Were they grown in a lab? If so, where were the scientists intending to put them, or what were they built for?
• Are they supposed to blend in with their surroundings or others of their species? (Think many types of fish, or zebras) Or are they made to stand out (such as brightly coloured fish that are poisonous)
• A creature who lives in a green, lush forest that gets heavy rain often is going to look a lot different than one who lives in the desert. Consider how they’d be built to survive their environment and climate.

3. What are their social instincts?

• Do they have pack instincts? Or are they solo?
• If they do have pack instincts, will they bond with humans? Or other creatures of different species?
• What do they do with their young or family?
• How do they find a mate to reproduce?
• What do they do if they come across another of their species? Or an animal of another species?

4. What do they use to defend themselves?

• Are they poisonous to their predators? Do they have a hard shell or quick reflexes?
• Consider what might pose a threat to them in their environment, and what they’ve developed to defend themselves against that threat.
• If they are the apex predator, consider what they have that makes them so effective in their environment.

5. What are their vulnerabilities?

• Or another way to put it–how can they be killed?
• Do they bleed? Is chocolate or another food poisonous to them?
• Do you need a specific weapon or technique to harm them?

Anything I missed?

Thanks for sending in your questions about my free editing service! Here are some of the ones I’ve gotten so far:

I feel like I’d be taking advantage of you because it’s free:

              I don’t like the assumption that I’m a pushover. Okay just kidding, I appreciate this instinct, but you’re not really taking advantage of me given I’m offering the work! I also ask you to trust me that I can set my own boundaries and let you know if the scope of the project is too much for me to take on.

              Of course, if you’d really like to give back to me in some way I always accept tips, Instagram follows, or reblogs of my editing post/recommendations to your writing friends, but none are necessary!

Okay but what do you get out of it?

              Experience—I can put ‘freelance editor’ on my resume and back it up with examples. I can also log my hours as volunteer hours which will help me get scholarships to pay for my schooling. Lastly, I hope to build strong community bonds with you all and genuinely just want to help out—I’ve been very lucky to have formal training and mentors throughout my writing career, and I hope to provide that to those of you who haven’t had the same opportunities!

Will you look at fanfiction/non-original work?

              Of course! As long as it was written by you (and not AI-generated).

How do I know you and I will click style-wise?

              I work with writers of all different styles in my regular job, so editing styles that aren’t my own is something I have a lot of experience in. If you’re really worried about it, I will let you know right off the bat if I think I would be a good editor for you or if you should try someone else.

What if you hate my work?

              I won’t tell you, and I can still do my job as an editor to improve it without tearing it apart. I believe good editors can take any piece of writing and see its values and what it’s doing well in addition to its flaws. My job is to bring out what’s already working in your piece. Essentially, I promise I won’t be mean to you or your work no matter what I think about it.

Can you help me get published?

              I can certainly help guide you through starting the process, but I’m not an agent and can’t reach out to anyone for you. However, if you’d like to send me proposals or queries to look at, I’m happy to edit those as well!

Can you help promote my work/blog?

              I’m happy to reblog or share any of your projects or writing that I’ve helped you out with, for sure!

What if my work isn’t good enough?

              No judgement here! I’m happy to look at your first draft, your final draft, and every draft in between. The whole point of editing and getting another set of eyes on your work is to improve it, so send me anything, no matter what state it’s in!

Check out the guidelines here:

              I believe a lot of thought and care should go into killing off characters. I tend to not care as much about books and characters where death is treated like not that big of a deal—where characters die off easily and without much pomp and circumstance. Generally, the more (important) characters you kill off, the less meaning the subsequent deaths will have. With that in mind, let’s get to a few considerations when thinking of killing off a character.

1. Does it make sense in your world/story?

If I open a book about a highschool friendship drama, I’m really not expecting anyone to be in mortal danger, whereas something like Game of Thrones or books that center around dangerous worlds, wars, or people, I’d expect death a lot more.

If a death is too shocking or out of place in the world and story you’ve created, it’s going to do the opposite of what you want and be silly rather than surprising, or feel unnecessary rather than providing an interesting twist.

2. Are there unintentional politics?

This one is big. The very first post I made was about how all writing is political, and this goes doubly for character deaths. For example, say you kill off a character who happens to be the only gay person in the story—or the killer happens to be a minority often stereotyped as aggressive. If your death plays into harmful stereotypes or tropes, consider finding a way to rework the plot to avoid it.

3. Does it have meaning?

Killing off characters for the sake of shock value or because you’re not sure what else to do with them is a surefire way to frustrate and annoy readers, ultimately losing their trust in you as a writer. I have actually put down books that killed off characters I liked because there wasn’t much meaning, consequences, or impact from their death.

Unless you have a specific world that intentionally makes death meaningless, it’s an event that’s going to dramatically and drastically change the people involved, the plot’s progression, and other environmental factors. If you’re not willing to have the impact of the death follow the characters all the way to the end, it might not have enough meaning to carry itself.

4. No one has died unless there’s a body

This is a rule often heard in filmmaking, but I believe applies to any media. Given characters who “die” off-screen tend to show back up later (especially if they’re the antagonist), readers may not buy your well thought out character death if there’s no confirmation of a body.

While showing or having an actual body might be impossible or unlikely in your story, a proper funeral or even credible character confirming the death will stand in here (“he’s dead, Jim.”) Beware relying on dialogue like, “I can’t believe they’re gone,” because characters tend to say this when the person is definitely not gone!

Anything else I missed?