A Revision Roadmap: Navigating Editorial Feedback

An edited manuscript might have hundreds of deletions, insertions, and sidebar comments. Or an editor might write up a twenty-page editorial letter outlining specific story development questions, craft issues, and plot opportunities. This scale of feedback can get overwhelming fast!

 

Developmental Editor Eva Barrows and Copy Editor Lila LaBine will prepare authors to receive editorial feedback from professional editors and offer steps to translate it into polished manuscripts. This presentation will review the kinds of feedback and revision tools authors can expect from their editor for where their manuscript is in the process. Then, they’ll look at ways to receive, respond, and implement feedback to strengthen a manuscript—without the overwhelm. Lastly, Eva and Lila will talk about how to address the issues that surfaced during editing and how to tell when a manuscript is ready to publish.

 

 

Eva Barrows is a developmental editor and content manager in the San Francisco Bay Area. She edits a variety of non-fiction and fiction book projects spanning self-development, memoirs, and historical fiction novels. Eva is the 2023-2025 Vice President of the California Writers Club, San Francisco Peninsula chapter and member of the Historical Novel Society and Women’s National Book Association. Eva founded Imitation Fruit Literary Journal in 2007 and holds a BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She is currently writing a historical novel set in the heyday of silent film movie-making in Niles, California.

 

Lila LaBine is a line and copy editor of fiction manuscripts and screenplays. She started her business, LaBine Editorial, in 2020 and since then has worked with over 30 authors and screenwriters on their women’s fiction, contemporary romance, sci-fi, low fantasy, romantasy, and screenplay projects. She finds great enjoyment in checking the details of her clients’ manuscripts, and she’s dedicated to helping all writers feel confident in their work and providing a safe space for them to get feedback and encouragement.