Author, Editor

Translator

&

based in Brooklyn

CONTACT

sophiedf.edits@gmail.com

WRITTEN PUBLICATIONS

JOURNALISM

POETRY

FICTION

TRANSLATION THEORY

INTERVIEWS

SERVICES

  • I edit with an eye towards spelling, grammar, syntax, and clarity, as well as addressing simple stylistic issues like repetitive language. If you’re working with a particular style guide, I ensure that everything adheres to it. I also look out for consistency errors—for instance, if someone’s eyes are brown in one scene and green in another, or if an organization is sometimes referred to by an acronym and other times by its full name.

  • I edit for clarity, style, and flow at the level of sentences and paragraphs. I provide the same mechanical corrections that I would include in a copy edit, but I also make deeper stylistic revisions, paying close attention to voice, word choice, and the progression of ideas. I seek to preserve (and indeed amplify) your distinctive authorial voice, helping you to craft the most impactful version of your prose.

  • I provide in-depth, structural edits. The focus of my feedback varies depending on the genre and particular needs of your writing, but it can include the work’s themes, characters, plot, world building, and emotional arc. For some nonfiction, it might also include the text’s logical progression, the construction of its arguments, and the incorporation of examples. In addition, I can help with research. Whatever the genre, you can expect a thorough look at how your writing fits together and where any foundational problems may lie. I can also provide some guidance on the prose itself, with an eye towards patterns and broad areas of improvement (i.e., not line-by-line revisions. If you do want line-by-line revisions, you’re probably looking for a line edit!).

  • I read your manuscript, then write several pages of big-picture feedback. Think of a manuscript review as a condensed version of a developmental edit. Both involve deep, structural critique, but developmental editing is more comprehensive, while a manuscript review provides more of an overview. This is a great option if you need some expert guidance on where to take a draft before you’re ready for more exhaustive edits.

  • I translate writing from French into English, striving to capture not only meaning, but also the subtleties of form, tone, and cultural context.

  • I am also happy to combine these services or to tailor them to your needs! Please reach out to discuss what you’re looking for.

Testimonials

Masha Strasburger, Screenwriter

“I wish I could enjoy editing like Sophie does. Sophie refines the work presented to them with equal parts good humor and zest, seemingly regardless of what that work is. I am regularly startled not only by their attention to form and content, but their sensitivity to how each supports the other. Their critiques often give me an entirely new angle from which to view my own work. Somehow, these insights always come from a place directly in line with what I was aiming at with each piece, even when I haven’t provided any context. Beyond their artistic strengths as an editor, Sophie is also wonderfully collegiate, and their notes are always reflective of this: kind, firm, direct, honest, efficient. I happen to know that Sophie regularly goes above and beyond not just for me, but also for their other clients, and I strive to emulate their diligence in my own work life. Their experience as both a fiction and non-fiction editor means that they bring with them both boundless imagination and a ruthless attention to detail and accuracy. While I struggle to express just how much working with them has enriched my own creative process, I think that with Sophie’s help, I just might.”

Norman Sasowsky, Professor Emeritus, University of Delaware

“Sophie Drukman-Feldstein has provided me with high-quality editing of a varied trove of memoirs I had written over the course of several years. The material I provided to them dealt with many different aspects of my life – my childhood, my school years, and the beginning and development of my career as an artist and as the curator of the Reginald Marsh Estate. I was completely unaware of the method they used, which was very effective in enabling me to separate suggestions, alternative wordings, and deletions. I felt so satisfied with their work that I could easily move on to the final copy.”