Eliot West, PhD
Eliot West Editorial

Writing teacher, coach, and editor supporting weird* fiction writers just like you!
* For “weird,” read nerdy, queer, neurodivergent, genre-crossing, or otherwise uniquely fantastic.

I’m an independent editor, educator, and writing coach who knows my way around narrative techniques, the writing process, and writers' pain points after decades of professional experience with stories. I value direct communication, understand the trust involved in exposing writing to critical eyes, and am ready to cheerlead your vision while we collaborate to make it shine.

What's on offer:

Writing lessons and story coaching: Ongoing, one-on-one support for fiction writers with a variety of needs and goals—and budgets!

Sentence-level editing: Help ensuring clear, consistent, correct, inclusive, audience-appropriate language, with an emphasis on author voice. I especially love working with queer and inclusive romance, fantasy, interactive fiction, and fiction that crosses genre lines, but I am always discovering new areas of interest too.

Story-level editing (romance only): An informed and empathetic perspective on what’s working, what needs attention, and how you might go about making your romance novel its very best self—at the big-picture level of plot, structure, conflict, character arc, point of view, pacing, theme, worldbuilding, and genre.

Story planning feedback: A fresh perspective and expert feedback on planning documents such as synopses and outlines, for writers who want to get a strong start or who feel stuck midway.

Find out more at my website, and feel free to reach out so we can chat!

Editing Services
Copyediting, Developmental editing, Line editing, Proofreading, Series, Substantive
Other Services
Author coaching, Manuscript critique, Style guide creation
Fiction Genres
Fanfiction, Fantasy, Historical, Mythology, Romance, Science fiction
Age Levels
Middle grade, Young adult, Adult
Style Manuals
Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), Modern Language Association (MLA)
Software
Adobe Acrobat Reader, Apple Pages, Google Docs, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, PerfectIt
Other Memberships
ACES: The Society for Editing