Fiction Editing

Susan is the main fiction editor at West of Mars, indulging her inner red pen with a sense of humor. She’s been known to quote song lyrics, make fun of herself, and — most important — get into your characters’ skins and their story to help you bring out your best. From a 25-word flash fiction to a 100,000+ word novel, if it’s fiction, Susan lives to do it all. *

Once you’ve checked out all the particulars, work up a budget and drop Susan an e-mail if you’d like to move to the next stage: discussing your budget and requesting a sample of Susan's work.

• We reserve the right to charge more for English as Second Language clients, as they often require more in-depth work and attention.
• We are willing to work with an author to fit a good quality edit into your budget, so long as I can still pay off the college tuition bills. And the mortgage.
• Payment in full must be made (Intuit and PayPal cheerfully accepted) before work begins. No refunds after work has begun. You’ve paid not only for the work we’ll do, but our time.
• Samples of around 1500 words are highly encouraged.
• All documents must be sent in a Word file, with double spacing throughout, first-line indents (or you’ll get a manuscript back with ’em!), no right side justification, and in preferably a readable font. Yes, that inclues Comic Sans. Courier induces nightmarish flashbacks to dot matrix printers and electric typewriters.
• If you are a Scrivener user, please let Susan know.
• *Okay, the things Susan doesn’t do: fact-checking. Anything with an overly religious bent. Checking to make sure your characters in an erotic romance really do bend that way.