Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚

@editsinthemargins.com

1.4K followers 1.9K following 4.4K posts

I help writers to shape their stories and hone their skills via developmental editing, coaching, beta reading, workshopping, and more. As a writer, I enjoy kid lit and exploring fantastical worlds. 🐉 https://editsinthemargins.com/social

editsinthemargins.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · May 27

Now that I have a new service to offer, it’s time to update these slides.

Editing means something different to everyone, and each writer has a different journey from blank page to finished product. I started In the Margins to support fiction authors in their creative journey, and that means . . . ⬇️

Which of my services is best for your needs?

The services I offer:
Developmental editing
Skilled beta reading
Coaching
1:1 workshopping

Which one is right for you? It depends on your needs & budget.

Let's break it down.

Developmental Editing

Goal: Strengthening a completed manuscript

What I do: A manuscript deep dive. I provide detailed feedback and suggestions on big picture elements (i.e. timing, characters, plot lines).

What you get: Detailed marginal notes, light inline edits, and a 10- to 20-page feedback letter.

Time and cost: $$$$
Because it takes about one week per 20,000 words, developmental editing is the most expensive of my services.

Skilled Beta Reading

Goal: Getting general feedback

What I do: A temperature check. I respond to your story as a (skilled) reader, providing my thoughts on strengths and weaknesses, and my overall questions and suggestions.

What you get: Occasional marginal notes and a 2-3 page feedback letter.

Time and cost: $$
Because it requires significantly less time and feedback, skilled beta reading costs far less than developmental editing.

1 1 6

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 4h

Agreed! I can just keep piling layers onto myself in the cold. But I can't even breathe in the heat!

1 1

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 4h

Oh, I get this! I definitely will find myself picking up on repetitive words or descriptive phrases. My clients are probably sick of me commenting that they need to trust their readers to clock details and remember them.

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 4h

😂 A friend was visiting from the west coast a couple weeks ago to attend a work conference in Haverhill. When I picked her up she was like, "Someone told me at the end of the day that it's not pronounced Haver-hill?!?!"

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 9h

That's exactly how I feel!! 😫

1 1

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 9h

*runs to the store*

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 9h

It should! I was wearing two pairs of socks earlier—a regular pair and then fuzzy ones over that and I was still cold. 😂

1 1

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 11h

This cliche seems like a right of passage, but once a line like that becomes poked at enough that jokes/memes are made of it (and they are), the reader is much more likely to pause on it. They become more aware of the writer. And that’s a risk to the experience and a risk to the story.

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 11h

Today’s #EditorsTeaClubCommunity prompt: What's an editorial hill you'll die on?

I can name 7 breaths that characters didn’t know they were holding from manuscripts I’ve read just this year. I flagged every single one of them.

Why? ⬇️

2 1

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 11h

I know this is so low on the list of world problems, but I'm a baby and I'm cold.

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 11h

Over a year ago I bought a heated blanket that has a foot pocket in it. Never got to use it because by then my senior cat was ruining blankets and I didn't want to risk it. So it's freezing today and I finally pulled it out only to discover the FOOT PART ISN'T HEATED??? That's where I'm most cold! 😠

4 7

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 15h

When my favorite character in a client's manuscript has a happy lil moment. 💜

a woman is sitting in front of a laptop with the word boop on it

Alt: Alexis from Schitts Creek sitting in front of a laptop smiling and saying boop

media.tenor.com

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 17h

Dear Writer,

Stop trying to sound like someone else—you're you, and that's lovely.

Love, Kayleigh

1 1

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 18h

It absolutely is!

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

a woman wearing sunglasses and a green shirt stands in front of an airplane

Alt: a woman wearing sunglasses and a green shirt stands in front of an airplane

media.tenor.com

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Eden Sandoval @edenwritesbooks.bsky.social · 3d

1 3

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Who else has had this moment? (With writing or any other passion, really.) 🙋🏻‍♀️😅

“That's the fear, isn't it? That I'll freeze this way, forever trapped in the act of trying to write. I often wake up in the dead of night, suddenly afraid that I've written my last good sentence. That there are, in fact, no good sentences left. I imagine a weary, aproned lady sweeping the floor of my mind, wiping her brow, pulling the shutters, switching the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED. Sorry, her expression seems to say, we're fresh out of sentences.”

—from BETTER BY FAR by Hazel Hayes

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

. . . they all go through their own mini developmental edit to become the report I share with the author.

—

Day 8 of the #EditorsTeaClubCommunity social challenge: What's something your clients don't see behind the scenes?

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

. . . in bed noodling through it and will have to shoot myself an email for the morning.

All of this thinking and processing and questioning is where the human touch of an edit comes from. There are just so. many. notes. And eventually . . . ⬇️

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

I'll be doing the dishes or making dinner when a thought or question occurs to me and I need to stop to write it down. I'll be driving and trying to puzzle out an issue I encountered within a manuscript, so I often have to record voice notes. Hell, sometimes I'll be . . . ⬇️

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

. . . my observations and questions regarding characters, world elements, plot points (and holes), themes, etc. When actively editing, I’ll have a notebook next to me, stickies, and often the notepad open on my laptop as well.

But it doesn’t really stop when I get up from my laptop.

⬇️

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

The thing is, I don’t just read stories all day.

I study and meditate on the manuscript in front of me. Not only am I combing through slowly and leaving comments, I’m jumping through the document to look for or double-check conflicting information. Or I’m taking hoards of notes full of . . . ⬇️

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Often I see new editors offering/authors requesting developmental edits for a couple hundred dollars—recently I saw an author ask for one for just £50. It’s clear in those moments that there’s a misunderstanding of costs and how much time a professional spends when completing a proper dev edit. ⬇️

1 3

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

😭💜 Thank you, Jordan!

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Literary agents! If you're looking for grumpy/sunshine YA romance with an athletic theme, you'll love Kerry's manuscript. 💜

Diary Of A Would-Be Author (she/her) @justmeker.bsky.social · 1d

ELDEST DAUGHTER x MINE

🥋 Jordyn is a competitive martial artist with her sights set on 🏅
🏈 Connor is an ex Varsity football player looking for a new start.
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Both have complicated families.
If they can get out of their own way, this 😡 and ☀️ just might get everything they want.
##DVPIT #YA #R

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

I think it's because the term AI has come to be associated specifically (and negatively) with *generative* AI so a lot of people don't realize that things that have existed for a long time like spellcheck or dictation are themselves a form of AI.

1 1