First Chapter Review

This is a serious DEEP DIVE Edit

Do you understand concepts like:

“Show don’t tell”

Opening and Closing Hooks

Dialog Pacing

White Space

Deep Point of View

(and yes, there are others)

The first chapter (or first few chapters) Deep Dive Edit will cover everything I see that can be improved in detail. I will cover not only the “how” but the “why” .

It is my goal that at the end of this edit, you will be introduced to concepts that you can carry through the rest of the manuscript to strengthen the text and improve the quality of your entire work.

Please email me to check pricing and availability or follow me on:

There are three types of edits, done in this order:

  1. Developmental/substantive: Big picture, plot, pacing, overall arc + romantic arc (if needed), show verses tell, opening and closing chapter hooks, dialog beats, sentence structure, flow, word choice, general grammar while keeping a hold of the author’s voice.

This is the longest part of the editing process. It is the most labor intense, and normally the most costly.

  1. Line Edit/Copy Editing: Sentence structure, flow, word choice, general grammar while keeping a hold of the author’s voice, light proofread.

This is the start of the fine tuning phase. You are completely happy with the developmental status of your novel (see #1) and you are ready to look at the more “fine tuning” aspect of the text.

You should always get a final proofread after this step. Any time you make changes, you could accidentally introduce small typos that a proofreader would catch in the final read.

  1. Final Proofread: Reading slowly, checking for punctuation and correct spelling. (This is done LAST after all other changes are made, because the next step is formatting and publication. Yay!)

Developmental Editing:

I’d be happy to give you advice on how to whip your manuscript into shape for submission to agents and editors, or to be developmentally sound for self-publication, if that is the avenue you choose. I work in Microsoft Word with track changes turned on. When you get the manuscript back, you can look at each suggestion and approve/reject one at a time, or click on “accept all” to adopt all the changes at once. I give advice in-line within your manuscript, and then give overall comments at the end of the job.