I grew up in a county with more than four times as many cows as people in rural Wisconsin. Books and writing were my portals to other worlds. I enjoyed diagramming sentences, so you can guess how popular that made me. In college, I majored in English, graduating Summa Cum Laude. A required class for all the English majors not also studying for education degrees involved memorizing passages, including the prologue to Canterbury Tales and Hamlet’s soliloquy, so we’d have something to recite in the subway for coins while we starved for our art.

Heeding the advice of everyone, after college I moved back to Wisconsin to attend law school. There, my legal writing professor pummeled my every creative writing instinct into submission. “Throw out that thesaurus; you need to use the same defined term in every instance to avoid ambiguity. A resolution must be all one long run-on sentence with at least five ‘whereas’ clauses and a ‘therefore, be it hereby resolved’ or you’re doing it wrong.” I was not his favorite student but learned how to write contracts and pleadings.

I moved to Minnesota and practiced in private law firms for over a decade, serving as a shareholder in two firms. All of my writing was professional because all hours were potentially billable, but I kept reading for fun. In 2009, I left private practice and went in-house to a job with regular office hours and actual PTO. This allowed me write creatively again.

I joined writing groups, took classes, read books on writing craft, and entered (and won) writing contests under my pen name, Miranda Darrow, which I continue to use for my editing business. Getting back to creative writing was the breath of fresh air my life needed. I joined several critique groups and found critique partners who inspired me to study editing, so I joined the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) and took many classes. Jennifer Lawler’s series on developmental editing and Lourdes Venard’s copyediting courses are highly recommended. I also joined the Professional Editors Network (PEN). Later, I took my editing business online, joined the #RevPit group of editors, and volunteered for their annual contest and #10Queries events. In 2020, I joined the #RevPit board.

My strengths as an editor are:

• Finding inconsistencies and offering potential resolutions
• Tracking your story’s timeline and character arcs
• Tying up plot loopholes
• Helping your manuscript conform to genre expectations
• Identifying pacing and structure issues
• Tracking characters, setting, and rules of your story universe across a series

My logic skills are an asset. Let me be the plotter if you don’t want to. I’m experienced with a variety of genres including: romance, young adult (YA), middle grades, women’s fiction, speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy), and mystery. I’ve run various genre-fiction critique groups online and in person for years. I’m also a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (and 2018 finalist in their Rising Star contest). Writers are my people and I love talking with them about their writing.

Disclaimer – None of the information I provide as an editor is legal advice, even if the topic includes legal process, laws, or attorney characters. I am not engaged in the private practice of law. Please consult an attorney practicing in your jurisdiction for legal advice. With this disclaimer, my legal writing professor will finally be happy with me.