Manuscript Editing

Manuscript Editing for Traditional and Self-Publication

Combined Edit: Developmental and Line/Copy

I do Developmental and Line/Copy at the same time because they’re deeply related and it’s how my mind works. Available for full or partial MS (100 pg. min.) Any genre but screenplay. Rough draft or finely polished. This Combined Edit saves clients money and turn-around time. 95% of my clients chose this option.

Fee: 7 cents per word. See *
Timeline: 1 month turn-around.
Service: Developmental (story, plot, character, setting, themes, structure, pacing, etc) and Line/Copy (grammar, spelling, punctuation, improper dialogue set-up, word choice, clichés, paragraph sequences, etc). Read twice, pages heavily marked in black ink, then green. Rigorous and constructive. Then time spent away from the text from which my deepest insights come. Typed 15-25 page critique.
*Note: Discount to 6 cents per word to friends of past or present clients, writers from Harvard Club SF and SV, Mechanics’ Institute, SF Writers Conference, NY State Summer Writers Institute.
Payment timeline: $100 deposit to reserve the time. Non-refundable but 100% applied toward the fee. Half fee submitted with manuscript. Balance due upon receipt of the edited MS. I believe deeply in the value of a good edit and am happy to receive the second half of the fee in installments customized to the client’s individual needs.

 

Genius is not a strong enough word…. She makes us do things we think we can’t…. and gets writers to their own truth, their original, idiosyncratic thinking. And, of course, there is the line, word by word, the liturgy of the line. She makes it holy.
–Julianne Ortale, author of How Sin is Unsaid, Dialogues and a Story.

 

The world doesn’t need more stuff. It needs more art. Let’s do it!

Contact maryrakow1@gmail.com