Live hungry. Sleep fucked. Die trying.
Mentoring
Book Doctor/Editing Services
The Literary MOT
Developmental feedback: Bringing over 30 years experience in workshopping, ~10 years experience as a professional book doctor for Jericho Writers, and ~4 years experience in professional editing work for various publishers, what I offer is a flexible feedback service consisting of an in-depth report on problems and potential solutions, an annotated copy of the manuscript, and a follow-up chat via phone or Skype. With reports sometimes reaching ~30K words,
thorough is the watchword. Covering everything from the nitty gritty of presentation, prose and viewpoint to the broadest issues of narrative dynamics, this is a no-nonsense book doctor style critique aimed at identifying issues, nailing down exactly
why what's on the page isn't working, and exactly
how that can be fixed.
Rate: £50 per 10K words.
Mentoring Services
Guitar Tuition for Prose
One-to-one mentoring: If you're based in Glasgow or willing to travel, mentoring sessions can be arranged for a more informal ongoing process of face-to-face feedback in the comfort of my couthy West End flat. Provide a copy of your work in progress in advance, and over the course of an afternoon and/or evening, we'll work on honing it–but with the key aim here being to level up your skills rather than simply apply a book doctor's. With workshops available on the principles of self-editing prose, nailing down an inchoate viewpoint, writing coherent & compelling action, and structuring your narrative to make it not just engaging but gripping, I'll do my best to send you away with a
palpable gain in practical craft skills.
Rate: £25 per hour.
Professional Editing
Editing for Publication
Structural / Line / Copy editing: From experience in the past few years working freelance for publishers like Unbound and Lethe Press, these book doctor and mentor services aimed at helping writers level up their craft have bled into straight-up professional editing. Line and copy edits alone will only superficially clean up an unreadable manuscript however, so taking on a prospective direct client here is contingent on them already writing at a professional level, and with structural editing a more creative challenge, work in that area takes priority in my schedule. Enquire by all means, but please don't be offended if I politely decline.
Rate: £50 per 10K words / negotiable.
“When I finished the rough draft of my novel, I thought: what now? I had a book, but it still needed a damn good edit. Self-editing can be taught, and by sitting down with Hal Duncan to learn the nuts and bolts of the editing process, I learned a great deal on how to apply those techniques to my manuscript. A few self-edited drafts later The Traitor God landed an agent and was then picked up and published by Angry Robot.”
Cameron Johnston
The Traitor God
(Dragon Awards 2018 finalist)
“Brilliant, a developmental editor who’s second-to-none. What I expected was a short report highlighting the major issues in my manuscript with some simple suggestions of how to fix them. What I got was a 63 page dissection of my book that taught me more about writing than I’ve learned from any other source. I’ve already used his editorial services again and I’m sure I will continue to do so.”
Luke Hindmarsh
Mercury's Son
“Hal's editing skills were essential in the success of my novel. He suggested an amazing new organizational structure for the narrative and a change in tense for one of the characters which helped a great deal with the thematic unity. I value Hal's insights and certainly credit his editorial talent and dedication in making Lord Byron's Prophecy a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award.”
Sean Eads
Lord Byron's Prophecy
(Shirley Jackson Award 2016 finalist)
