About the work

A closer look.

A worked example, from a draft of my own. This is a line I cut: "...whatever was above her house now was holding very still, like something that knows it has been seen." What the simile was carrying: the reader's feeling that something is watching her. Why it fails: the scene already said the world was holding still. The simile adds a watcher, and a watcher turns a story about loss into a story about threat. The repair, four words shorter: "...whatever was above her house now was holding very still." That is the read, at page scale. I find the first line where your scene stops earning its place, quote it, say what it was carrying, and give you the smallest version that would hold it. You send up to 3,000 words and the one question you actually want answered. I read it twice and send back one page: the first failure, the line quoted, what it was carrying, a version that holds it, the two things I would keep, and the gaps I cannot fix from the page. I read for openings, place, and the one wrong detail that tells a reader the world has turned. I do not rewrite your voice and I do not flatter. If I cannot find a real failure, I say so and you pay nothing.