Author Coaching
Craft-focused primers and personalized coaching on writing technique, based on your own manuscript or work-in-progress
Overview of Services
TED’s author coaching services help writers of all experience levels hone storytelling craft and improve writing skills. Our editors and writing teachers provide hands-on, highly personalized feedback to encourage what you’re already doing well and guide progress with what you need to work on to improve as a writer. We use your manuscript as the basis for coaching on any techniques and principles that can strengthen your writing and maximize your story’s appeal.
Topics vary based on where you need the most help but may address:
- how to maximize the interest of your premise and plot
- how to select, manage, and maintain viewpoint
- how to improve story structure and pacing
- how to enhance conflict, stakes, and tension
- how to make your characters more interesting, convincing, and/or distinct from one another
- how to write captivating dialogue
- how to write memorable action scenes, dialogue scenes, sex scenes, and more
- how to effectively manage exposition and backstory
- how to self-edit your manuscript
- what “show, don’t tell” really means, how to do it right, and where not to do it
- how (and when) to write effective narrative summary
- how to write compelling description
- how to find and strengthen your own voice
- how to work within guidelines and reader expectations of your genre (without being predictable or too formulaic)
Pricing
Author coaching services are billed either by the hour at the rate of $75 per (with a discounted rate available if the work is ongoing) or at rates you can read more about via the EXPLORE OPTIONS menu at the upper right side of this page. If you have questions, would like a quote, or want to engage our author coaching services, please contact Ross Browne at the Tucson office.
Learn More
Interested in learning more about our perspective on fiction technique and our approach to author coaching in general? You can sign up for our free Creating Captivating Fiction whitepaper series, which explores several of our editors’ takes on story structure, plotting, characterization, writing style, and more by clicking the button below.
Explore Options
“…coherence in the world [an author] creates is constituted of two concepts he holds, which may be in conflict: one is his world view, his sense of the way the world is; and the other is his sense of morality, the way the world ought to be.” Rust Hills