Services

I offer:
Editing (Copy Editing, Line Editing, Substantive Editing, Sensitivity Reading,)
Research and Fact-Checking
Commissioned Writing

To contract me for any of the services below, please contact me at elliott.dunstan@gmail.com with the following information:

• Specific service requested
• Length of manuscript/project
• Type of manuscript/project
• Ideal turnaround time
• Other information that seems important

All prices are in USD.

Requests for free sensitivity reads or edits out of nowhere will be deleted; however, if I know you, I’m willing to negotiate trade edits on manuscripts of roughly the same size. I’m all about writers helping writers! For long projects (100+ pages), send me a 3-page preview and I’ll do an in-depth sample edit of those 3 pages so you can get a sense of my style.

I’ll take on most projects that sound interesting, but I’m at my best with the following types of short stories and novels:

• Psychological, spiritual or existential horror
• Splatterpunk, body horror, etc. (I’m not interested in exploitation work. Know the difference.)
• Urban and mythic fantasy
• Poetic inspiration, “purple” prose, bizarre narratives, switching timelines
• Queer romance, especially the messier and stranger kinds; polyamory, breakups, mutual coping, queerplatonic partners, etc.
• “Soft” sci-fi
• Mythic retellings, especially queer, disabled, POC, feminist or otherwise narrative-adjusting ones

Please don’t query me for:

• Romance with no representation. Romance is a hard sell for me a lot of the time anyway, and I don’t have much to add unless you want a sensitivity read for something.
• Actively racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. work. I – Why would you query me for this in the first place?
• The third or fourth book in a series if you won’t let me read the first few.
• Murder mysteries.
• Anything about cis heterosexual men getting very drunk and smoking a lot.
• Screenplays

Editing:

Copy editing (0.005/wd): Includes proofreading, checking for typos, grammar edits, basic flow and formatting.

Line editing (0.01/wd): Focuses on language use, sentence structure, communication of thoughts, etc.

Substantive and stylistic editing (0.02/wd): Includes paragraph structure, word choice, organization and voice.

Sensitivity reading (0.005/wd): I am qualified to read for:

• deaf/Deaf/HoH characters and issues
• transmasculine and non-binary characters
• chronically ill characters, developmental disorders (mostly autism)
• mental illnesses including but not limited to PTSD, C-PTSD, Cluster B personality disorders (BPD, NPD, HPD, etc.) anxiety and depression
• abuse and abuse survivor characters of all kinds.
• asexual, aromantic and aroace characters and themes

I offer a 15% discount on any MS over 50k. I am also willing to offer additional discounts to marginalized authors – contact me for additional information.

Fact-Checking and Research

You need to know more about a topic for your novel but you don’t know where to start – or, you already wrote about a topic but you want somebody with the background in the topic to look it over. That’s where fact-checking and research comes in! I charge hourly to cover how time-consuming research can be, but you can always set a cap and I’ll keep you updated.

Fact-Checking: $12/hr
Includes reading a manuscript after-the-fact, isolating factual errors, researching and suggesting minor changes. All research will be compiled into an accessible bibliography for continued reference.

Research: $15/hr
Doing research on a given topic to a certain amount of specificity. All research will be compiled into an annotated, accessible bibliography that can then be used for your writing. Ex: “I am writing a book about the queer community in Ottawa in the 1990s and my cap is 100 dollars.” I will then do as much research on that community as possible in 6 hours, put my sources into a document, annotate each of them with important notes and deliver it to you.

I offer fact-checking and research for the following topics; query me about possible others and I’ll see what I can do.

• Mental illness and mental illness history, with a specialization in personality disorders
• Ancient Greek and Roman history, mythology and literature, with a specialization in the Ancient Bronze Age and Trojan War.
• European mythology, with a specialization in fairy tale and Arthurian legend
• Christian and Jewish history, with a specialization in Biblical archaeology
• General archaeological practice
• Queer history, with a specialization in North America (NB: I am equipped to research this for Great Britain, Ireland and Australasia, but other sources should be consulted for Asian and African countries due to language barriers.)

(What’s the difference between fact-checking and sensitivity reading? Sensitivity reading is about impression and emotion; you want me to feel good about your story, and it focuses on me as a marginalized editor. Fact-checking, on the other hand, is much more about the solid facts of history. Often the two will overlap, but one I will pull from my own history and the other I’ll find articles stating what I need.)

Writing:

For prose work, I charge $12 USD per 1000 words, and will write just about anything except pure romance. Please query for a full list of will and won’ts – my availability for established settings varies – but I’m open to queries pretty much always.

For poetry, I charge about $10-20 USD per poem, depending on format. Again, a query will help me get more information.

TESTIMONIALS:

“Elliott was my first sensitivity reader and made the experience an easy one! He met my deadline and gave me excellent, thorough feedback that made my manuscript a million times better. I’m grateful for his help and would recommend his services to anyone.” -Devyn Fussman, 2019

“Very responsive. Fast turnaround. Received valuable insights and advice.” -Matt Hope, 2020