Developmental Editing and Manuscript Consultations
For poets, fiction, and nonfiction writers: an editor who believes in your work. I read with sensitivity to the strength in your manuscript, including brilliant ideas that aren’t landing quite yet.
Rather than a serious of suggestions based on my taste, I give you feedback born out of attunement to your goals. A former client once told me “you see not just what the writer says, but what the writer wishes to say.”
My feedback includes both suggestions for the work itself and process advice for how to develop your manuscript to its full potential.
When feedback grows out of belief in the work, it brings clarity, determination, and decisiveness. Approaching your next draft, you feel curious, open, and confident.
What is a Developmental Edit? What Is a Manuscript Consultation?
A developmental edit deals with large structural questions about the book: Is a character underdeveloped? Would it work better told chronologically or through flashbacks? Is there a way to organize the book that would work better for the material? Does the pacing need to change?
A developmental edit usually does not include a lot of line editing because the overall structure and themes of the book are still in flux. In book publishing, you must complete a developmental edit before a line edit or a copy edit.
A manuscript consultation (for poets only) considers your whole manuscript. Here, we’ll talk both about the book at both a structure and line level. I’ll suggest changes to the order of the poems when necessary, possibly suggest removing poems that don’t fit, and give thoughts on how the poems themselves could improve.
Types of Manuscripts I Work With
Each developmental edit or manuscript consultation includes comments within the text, a letter describing my suggested changes, and an optional meeting to discuss any follow-up questions.
Novels and short story collections
Poetry collections
Memoir
Essay collections
I don’t work on horror, erotica, or book-length journalism projects.
Wondering if we might be a fit? You can send me 1-2 pages for a sample edit so we can see if we would work well together.
“At a time in my writing when I had hit a wall and couldn’t get over it, Megan Alpert came to the rescue. Her objective and critical eye helped me to understand where I really wanted my writing to go. In addition, her excellent editing skills took my writing to a higher level.”
—Sandra Worsham, memoirist and fiction writer
Get In Touch
Want to know more? Fill out the contact form to ask a question or request a sample edit.