Erik PillarStructure is structure
STRUCTURE IS STRUCTURE

Developmental Editing · Fiction & Technical Books

I help make your book better find the load-bearing problem in your draft.

Developmental editing for novelists who think like engineers, and engineers who have to write like novelists. A decade writing genre fiction, and a day job developing technical books at a working publisher.

Structure is structure. A chapter that loses the reader and an API guide that loses the reader fail for the same reasons — and most editors have only ever seen one of the two.

Send 1,000 wordsA sample edit, without charge. Returned within a week.
A line edit

From a technical manuscript. Same instinct on a novel.

It should be noted that the configuration file is able to be modified by the user in order to change the default behaviour of the system. Edit config.yml to change what the system does by default.

27 words to 12, and the reader now knows which file to open. Your voice is not the thing I am cutting — the throat-clearing is.

MFAEmerson College
ManningDevelopment Editor
1,000,000Readers reached
CMOS 17Chicago discipline

I. The Record

Books I have developed

All titles →

Development editor of record. Manning Early Access Program.

II. Two Doors

What are you working on?

For novelists

I am writing a novel

Fiction development for genre writers — epic and progression fantasy, LitRPG, science fiction, horror, romance. I read the genre you are writing in, and I write it too.

Fiction editing →
For publishers & authors

I am publishing a technical book

Chapter-by-chapter development for practitioner titles. Author coaching, structure, audience alignment, and deadlines that hold. Chicago 17th, tracked changes, Word.

Technical editing →

III. The Offices

Four services, four different jobs

Most authors ask for the wrong one. I will tell you which you actually need before you pay.

  1. Developmental Editing

    The whole-book pass. Structure, arc, character, pacing, and whether your reader is where you think they are.

    Ask for this when the book is finished but not working.

  2. Line & Copy Editing

    Sentence by sentence for rhythm, clarity, and voice — and the same pass holds grammar, consistency, and house style to the line.

    Ask for this when the structure is right and the prose is not.

  3. Proofreading

    The last pass before it goes out — typos, spacing, bad breaks, and anything the previous rounds introduced.

    Ask for this last, on the laid-out proofs.

  4. Manuscript Development & Editorial Consulting

    Work at the outline and the plan, before a year of your life goes into a shape that cannot hold it — or a standing second opinion while you write.

    Ask for this before you commit, or when you are stuck and need a reader who knows the whole book.

IV. The Audition

I write the thing I edit

All fiction →

No editor should ask of you what they have not done themselves. Here is mine, at length, in your genres.

V. What Authors Say

In their words

Erik has helped me edit my first book from zero to launch. Throughout the process he provided great recommendations, in terms of content, style, and grammar. I can certainly say that I would not have finished my book, without his help!
Francisco TrindadeLeading Effective Software Teams

Send me a thousand words.

Any thousand — an opening, a chapter you cannot fix, the bit you already know is broken. I will edit them properly and send them back with real queries, free. One document is enough to tell whether we should work together.

Start a sample editRead the services