Dear Sturgis,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide an editing service for you. I thoroughly enjoyed working on your novel, and found it to be an exhilarating read. The action is very compelling, the characters are vividly drawn, and the development of the plot and the pacing of the action is handled with a great amount of skill. I especially enjoyed the development of the characters’ relationships, as this really drew me into the story and brought it alive for me. A fundamental aspect of this is your use of dialogue: I think you have a real gift for this aspect of the writing, and you use it to excellent effect – it’s as if the characters come alive through their words and your descriptions of them!

I think the stylistic choice to attempt to render the fight and action scenes in as much detail as possible is a good one: as with the dialogue with the characters, this makes what is happening especially vivid, and the reader can see what’s happening in great detail. A crucial aspect of this is your obviously deep knowledge of the martial arts and other modes of fighting, which transforms the writing into a very precise and clear evocation of some truly heart-stopping action scenes. (On a side note, have you considered adapting this as a film? I think it would make an excellent movie, and the material you already have could be adapted very easily.)

There are places in which I was not 100% sure what you were trying to say. I’ve indicated where this was the case with a comment in the margin or, at later points in the novel, by highlighting it in yellow. For the most part, though, the editing involved minor changes to punctuation, phrasing, and so on. I’ve tried to retain the rhythm and style of your own writing, as these are among its greatest strengths, but have here and there found it necessary to rewrite the occasional sentence or change the word choice. There are very few changes I’d suggest to the broader matters such as structure, organization and so on: as I indicate above, I think the plot and the pacing are handled very well, and the reader is engaged throughout the development of the story.

Thank you again for the opportunity to help you with this. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any further queries or requests.

Best wishes,

Michael