Jim Newcomer, Ph.D.

Finding the Greatness in Your Story – Working Together

from first draft to publication-ready

Developmental & Line Editing – and Coaching

Support for Writers When You Need It – and Always a Free Sample Edit – So You Know What You are Going to Get

Dashing through to finish your first draft? Or looking at it and trying to figure out where to begin the second round? Or the third round? Or how to organize your whole editing process?

Or just wishing you had another reader who could provide some comments and suggestions for improvement?

What can you cut or add to draw your readers to the vital core of the narrative? How can you sculpt a Main Character that your readers will care about — really care? When you reach the climax, how have you prepared your MC for the changes in character that you will reveal before the final page?

Worse, are there slow places in your narrative, patches were readers might lose interest and put the book down?

But even more central: it’s your voice – your style, yes, but more than that. If you are a writer, you probably know what I mean. Whether you are a beginning writer or a veteran, your voice is what gains and holds your readers’ interest – authoritarian, urgent, comic – or sassy? You need a supporter to ensure that it is consistent, that your story’s pacing is right, that your voice shines through, that your characters are vivid, and that readers can follow you MC through the whole journey and understand why they change in the end.

And to be a truly great writer, you’ll want to take us readers to places where we see in our hearts things that are fundamental, that will speak about our lives to all of us.

Oh, and did I mention complete, grammatical, coherent, and significant?

On the practical side, I offer a few other benefits that you may not have anticipated, but nearly all my clients have rejoiced in:

speeding up the process – You may have what it takes to write a brilliant work, but revising can be confusing. It’s complicated. How do you know if you spent too much time explaining your MC’s motives and stakes? Or describing the scene? Or if you skipped over your setting so quickly that your reader can’t understand your MC’s choices?
Bringing to you back to BIC (butt in chair), the sine qua non quality of every writer. When things begin to drag and people gain your attention to other things, a note from your editor works like magic to regain your attention, maybe even to provide a deadline.
Avoiding wrong advice from someone who tells you they know it all. It’s important that the suggestions you receive point you in the right direction. Wrong advice may mean you spend valuable time discovering the path back to the main road – if you discover it at all. Like many of us, I wish I had worked harder in college, but at Princeton, where I was an English major, even I learned to distinguish good writing from not-so-good. My promise is that I will share that with you – unflinching.
Above All – Getting it Right so you achieve what you started out to do: writing a good, perhaps even great, book that you are proud of, that may attract an agent and publisher, and that in the end, readers want to read.

If you want to reach readers I invite you to work with me. I am a professional who will be on your side – demanding high standards; encouraging as well as challenging you.

I’ll ask you what your purpose is in writing. I’ll demand your best writing, and I’ll point out unneeded words and suggest ways to remodel awkward sentences. I’ll suggest aspects of the story that may be missing, leading you deeper into self-discovery, and I’ll respect your true voice.

If you look at my Portfolio page, you’ll see that I have a range of interests and experience. In addition to memoirs, these include:

Memoirs and Literary and Historical Fiction
Non-fiction, focused on sustainability and environmental issues, politics, and history (My Ph.D. from Stanford, is in Political Science.)
Academic – Social Sciences (with experience editing texts by Chinese scholars in English)

I also work in the fields of the practical – newsletters that need editing, web copy that isn’t quite right – yet – and reports that you want to organize so that recipients can read and understand them easily.

If you are writing, and you this seems right to you, we might be a good fit. The probability is high enough that it’s worth exploring further.

So go ahead, start by exploring. Scroll down to the Contact Me button next to my photo toward the bottom. Use it and let’s see where it leads.

And just so you know what my motivation is, the bare truth is that I succeed when you succeed. That’s the only way it can work.

Added Bonus: A Note on Two Points: Writing a Memoir and the Power of Voice:

As a bonus here are some Choice Quotations from Mary Karr’s great book, The Art of Memoir that vividly illustrate both points (but you have to listen to the voice for yourself):

“Asking me how to write a memoir is a little like saying, ‘I really want to have sex, where do I start?’ What one person fantasizes about would ruin the romance for another. It depends on how you’re constructed inside and out, hormone levels, psychology. Or it’s like saying, ‘I want a makeover, how should I look?’ A Goth girl’s not inclined to lime-green Fair Isle sweaters, and a preppy scorns black lipstick.”

Here’s another, same book:

“It’s harder [than telling stories in person] to translate lived experience onto a page. A story told poorly is life made small by words. The key details are missing, and the sentences might have been spoken by anybody. We need a special verbal device to unpack all that’s hidden in the writer’s heart so we can freshly relive it: a voice.

“Unfortunately, nobody tells a writer how hard cobbling together a voice is. Look under ‘voice’ in a writing textbook, and they talk about things that seem mechanical – tone, diction, syntax. . . . For me psyche equals voice, so your own psyche – how you think and see and wonder and scudge and suffer – also determines such factors as pacing and what you write about when. Since all such literary decisions for a memoirist are offshoots of character, I often find that any bafflement I face on the page about these factors is instantly answered once I find the right voice.”

What Writers I Have Worked With Say:

Linda Viviane, author of No More Daughters (still in progress)

"I began writing my novel, which spans 5 generations, over 10 years ago. I did my own editing, going back over what I’d written often, making slow forward progress. I didn’t show it to even close friends, for fear of harsh criticism. At last, I realized that to finish it I needed a skilled editor. On a friend’s recommendation, I contacted Jim Newcomer with the hope he’d not only help me see my book to completion but be gentle with my still-forming creation. I have been working with Jim for a year and am now completing my book’s last section. Jim has advanced my writing every day with encouragement, direction, and terrific editing suggestions. He understands the story I am telling and why it is important for me to tell it. I recommend without hesitation Jim Newcomer, an excellent editor, knowledgeable resource, and sincere advocate for a writer in any genre."

Rabbi Rob Abramovitz, author of A Rabbi's View of the Gospels

"Dr. Newcomer is the best editor I've ever worked with, and I've known dozens. He is incisive and kind at the same time. Most editors can find grammatical and flow issues. What sets Jim apart is that he finds the stumbling blocks that limit a reader's enjoyment and/or understanding. His editing vastly improved my latest work and made it considerably more salable."

Krista Puttler, author of Surgeon in Progress

"Jim Newcomer is a passionate, meticulous editor. Without his precise reading and many quiet encouragements my memoir would never have reached its full potential."

R. Paul Moore, VVA Petitioner

It feels like I just went through 7 weeks of class-5 white water rafting! Thanks for being a superb guide as the drop and edges and near collisions with rock faces passed us by! I feel like you had a steady hand on the right rear corner of the raft. . . smiled at my lunges sometimes, cracked up at my final, and mistaken soar out of the raft in the last stages… and perked me up after an absurd underwater ending. (No resolution, that is!!) You’re a good, compassionate, patient man. What a gift! Paul

Mo Avishan, Author of Unfinished Business: Growing Up in Tabriz

I can’t recommend Jim Newcomer highly enough! He did far more than the usual editor’s work on my story, The Un finished Chapters. He guided me patiently through each chapter, helping my stories truly come to life. His insights, encouragement, and thoughtful feedback made the entire process not only productive but deeply enjoyable. Beyond being an outstanding editor, he has become a trusted friend through this journey. Working with him has been an absolute pleasure.

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SERVICES INCLUDE

Developmental Editing

I read Your Draft for the big. structural issues, raising questions that include, first, is it significant? Does it matter? Do you make your reader care?

Then: Is it coherent? What Makes it Work (or Not)?

Are characters and story arcs clear? Does your protagonist face a challenge and act to overcome it – and change in the process? Are the Stakes high enough to matter?

Taking it scene by scene –does each scene do what’s needed? The pacing – does the narrative slow down or lose its way? How could you strengthen it (or rescue it)?

Line Editing

Are your chapters and scenes placed in the right order? Does each scene have a structure that makes sense to your readers?

Your paragraphs and sentences – are they clear and readable, and have you placed them in the right order so as the trajectory unfolds it is clear to your reader?

When Richard Simon was an editor at Simon and Schuster, they say he gave every staff member a bronze paperweight that read:

“GIVE THE READER A BREAK.”

This is when the first red pencil work begins

Copy editing

This is the stage that gets us down to honing individual sentences and paragraphs, the kind of editing we usually associate with the red pencil and the squiggles between lines.

While I do not claim to be a copyeditor, I can seldom restrain my urges to fix sentences and catch spelling and grammar errors as I go.

It’s the traffic cop in me. I won’t apologize, because my persnickety reading helps you improve your writing.

I often find sentences that would work better if you shortened or combined them. Or if you shifted from the passive to active voice. Or put the subject of the sentence where it belongs. The point is to make your reader want to read more.

Coaching

Some of my clients have relied on me to support them along the path, and I do it with ongoing conversations, mostly for free. I ask questions, dig for information, encourage by pointing out the good parts, and suggest things that keep their BICs, and therefore their projects alive and moving ahead.

This has been for me the most rewarding aspect of the work, but it seldom starts as a coaching engagement. Usually we start with developmental editing, and it just turns into coaching as we go along working together on a long and significant book.

Isn’t that what you want to write?

My Promises to You, the Writer

I promise quick responses and a close, supportive relationship.

When you write a memoir, especially, editor and writer need to build mutual trust. You are, after all, revealing deep issues, the fundamental values of your life, Your editor must respect your process as well as he respects you. I promise that respect, and I also promise that while I will point out your triumphs, the places where your genius shines, I will maintain an unwavering standard of professional quality that will guide you toward producing great writing.

I have an idol, a great editor, the late Robert Gottlieb, and in Avid Reader, his autobiography, he set out the rules he followed, which I emulate. He wrote what he considered the basics of editing:

- ‘Get back to your writers right away.’
- ‘It’s the writer’s book, not yours.’
- ‘Try to help make the book a better version of what it is, not into something that it isn’t.’
- ‘Spend your strength and your ego in the service of the writer, not for their own sake – or yours.’ And
- ‘It’s a service job.’”

Those are the promises I make to my writers, and I do my best to keep them.

Member:

For a free sample edit and consultation (500-1,000 words or so), click on the Contact Me button and tell me about it. Let’s begin a conversation.

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A Word About Rates

Getting real for a moment: a note about my rates: I base my rate on EFA averages. So they are reasonable – more than a carpenter, less than a software engineer. No surprise there.

Normally I work fast, and I like to charge by the hour, since editing is different for every client, every draft. That, of course, implies an element of trust.

But if you feel more comfortable paying by the word, I can charge that way.

In that case I’ll ask for a sample (500-1000 words) to edit and estimate the speed at which I might work – and then give you a per-word rate.