Fiction Editor & Writing Coach for Novelists
Turn your story into a stronger, more compelling novel with professional fiction editing and one-on-one guidance from an experienced editor, author, and writing coach.
Writing fiction requires more than a great idea. Characters need believable motivations. Scenes need purpose. The plot needs to hold together. The pacing needs to keep readers turning pages and all of it needs to work while still sounding like you.
Alice Osborn helps fiction writers identify what’s working, uncover what’s holding their stories back, and determine what to do next.
Whether you’re still writing your novel or have a completed manuscript ready for editing, Alice can help you move your story forward.
Your Novel May Be Missing Something You Can’t See
You’ve lived with your characters and story for months or perhaps years.
That familiarity can make some of the most important problems difficult to recognize.
You know why your character made that decision, but did you give the reader enough information to understand it?
You know what happened between chapters six and seven, but is an important piece of the story missing from the page?
You know where the story is going, but does the reader have a compelling reason to keep turning pages?
This is where working with an experienced fiction editor can be invaluable.
One of Alice’s greatest strengths as an editor is finding what’s not there.
She looks beyond grammar and punctuation to identify gaps, inconsistencies, unanswered questions, and storytelling problems that can prevent a good idea from becoming a compelling novel.
Fiction Editing That Looks at the Whole Story
A novel is made up of thousands of individual sentences, but editing fiction requires understanding how all of those sentences work together to tell a story.
Depending on your manuscript and its stage of development, Alice can help you evaluate:
Alice’s goal isn’t to turn your novel into the book she would have written.
It’s to help you make the book you intended to write stronger.
Fiction Editing That Preserves Your Voice
Your voice is one of the things that makes your fiction yours.
A good fiction editor shouldn’t erase it.
Alice works to identify problems and opportunities while respecting your writing style, characters, genre, and intentions for the book.
When something isn’t working, she doesn’t simply tell you it’s wrong. She helps you understand why it isn’t working and how you might make it stronger.
That makes editing part of the writing process rather than simply a list of corrections.
You remain the author and make the final decisions about your book.
Still Writing Your Novel? Alice Can Help With That, Too.
You don’t necessarily need to wait until you’ve typed “The End” to get professional help.
Sometimes writers know the story they want to tell but aren’t sure how to get there.
Maybe you’ve written 100 pages and don’t know what happens next.
Perhaps your characters aren’t developing the way you expected.
Maybe you’ve rewritten the opening five times but still aren’t satisfied with it.
Or perhaps you simply need structure and accountability to finally finish the book you’ve wanted to write for years.
As an experienced book writing coach, Alice can work with you while your novel is still taking shape.
She can help you work through problems, evaluate ideas, establish goals, and keep moving toward a finished manuscript.
Not sure whether Alice is the right editor for your manuscript?
Historical Fiction Editing
Historical fiction presents challenges that don’t exist in many other genres.
You’re not only telling a compelling story. You’re building that story within a real historical world.
Historical details need to give readers a sense of time and place without overwhelming the story. Dialogue needs to feel appropriate without becoming unnatural. Fictional characters and events may need to coexist convincingly with real people, places, and events.
Historical fiction is one of Alice’s specialties.
She is also writing a historical novel herself, giving her firsthand familiarity with the challenges historical fiction writers encounter.
Alice can help you evaluate the balance between history and story, while keeping characters, conflict, and narrative momentum at the center of the novel.
Why Work With Alice as Your Fiction Editor?
Alice brings an unusual combination of experience to fiction editing.
She’s a professional editor, published author, writing teacher, and book coach.
For almost two decades, she has edited writing across numerous genres, including fiction, nonfiction, memoir, children’s literature, poetry, and screenwriting.
Alice is the former editor of Wake Living magazine, where she edited and wrote articles for the quarterly publication. She has published four books of poetry and is currently working on a historical novel.
She has also been a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network for 20 years and has served on its Board of Trustees for the past ten.
Most importantly, Alice understands the writing process from both sides of the manuscript.
She knows what it’s like to edit someone else’s work and what it’s like to hand your own writing to someone else for criticism.
That perspective informs the constructive, practical approach she brings to her work with writers.
From First Draft to Finished Manuscript
Every writer comes to Alice at a different point.
You might have an idea and several chapters.
You might have a complete first draft that you know needs work.
You might have revised your novel several times and feel that you’ve taken it as far as you can on your own.
Or you might be preparing your manuscript for the next stage of publishing.
Alice can help you determine where your novel stands, what kind of help it needs, and what your next step should be.
If you have a completed manuscript that needs comprehensive professional editing, learn more about Alice’s [Manuscript Editing Services].
If you’re still developing or writing your book, [Book Writing Coaching] may be the better place to start.
Frequently Asked Questions About Book Editing