Alison Imbriaco – Editor

As a freelance copy editor who has worked on hundreds of fiction and nonfiction books, I've developed great respect for authors who can imagine a story and shape it into paragraphs and pages, who can develop characters and give them personalities and conversations.

Let me show you what I do and how I work. When you request an offer from me, I'll use your attached sample to give you a sample of what I do. You'll see the kind of corrections I make and suggestions I offer, and you'll see how I use the Comment feature to explain my thinking. You'll also see that working entirely in Word's Track Changes means you maintain complete control of your manuscript.

I love the challenge of working on fiction. Making sure the pieces--from point of view to timeline and from dialogue to action--fit together is like doing a jigsaw puzzle. I'll check that time is allowed for the action, whether it's hours or months. And I'll help you give the reader a "moving" picture of what's happening, ensuring, for example, that a character who has been leaning against the door and doesn't suddenly get up from a chair.

Fact-checking is a copy editor's first responsibility. In fiction, facts include real world names—of people, places, songs, cars, and apps, for example—as well as the facts of the fictional world. I’ll check that this character has blue eyes throughout and that Stephen doesn't become Steven later in the story. To do that kind of checking meticulously, I’ll develop a style sheet which you will receive with your copyedited manuscript.

Historical fiction adds another layer of fact-checking because one anachronism can break the connection you've made with your reader. Did you know that a character from the twelfth century would not have had a pocket? I’ve learned to recognize what needs to be checked, from the types of carriages in 1820 to money of the 1500, and then using the Internet to find the facts.

Of course, “historical” facts occur in contemporary fiction. For example, the forty-year-old character could not have played Pokémon as a ten-year-old.

Coworkers have told me I'm a wordsmith, and I'll bring that skill to your manuscript. Perhaps a good word should be replaced with a great word in a key sentence. Or a good word is used a bit too often and becomes a dull one. Or maybe it's a sentence structure that's repeated too often. Would shorter paragraphs help keep your reader engaged?

I “listen” to the words I’m reading so I can “hear” when alliteration becomes distracting or when an action sentence drags with too many “ing” phrases.

After so many years working with publishers and indie authors, catching spelling and grammatical errors is almost automatic. Still, I'll go through your work meticulously, again and again—checking Merriam-Webster online and the latest Chicago Manual of Style—to be sure I've done the best I can.

Let me have your back.

I'm looking forward to working with you on your book.