The principles of storytelling remain true across fiction, non-fiction, lyrics, and screenplays.

Structuring your manuscript to best capture your story and convey your ideas is the first step. A strong foundation gives you the power to engage a large audience clearly and effectively, maintaining your reader’s attention through an entire book.

The message and language must remain clear in any writing.

As a ghostwriter and developmental editor, I have helped authors, thought leaders, business leaders and other writers craft and refine their message. The first step is discussing your project and developing that foundation early. Then the writing can begin.

Jason Kenny offers different services to help you complete your manuscript your way. He has worked as a ghostwriter, completing novels, business books, screenplays, song lyrics, coaching guides and more. These have found publication through major publishers, independent publishers, and hybrid publications.

For some books, I’ve helped chart the path and develop the structure before the author began writing, as a developmental editor or the guiding role as a writing coach. On other projects, I refined later drafts as either an editor.

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Collected Works
Collected Works

Writing is a process that uncovers what you’re saying. There are times to do it quickly but there must also be moments of revision, reflection, rewriting. And this is slow, sometimes painfully slow.

But that process is worth doing. It uncovers more layers of the beauty around your story, your concept, your idea.

Stories Are About Risk
Stories Are About Risk

Stories are about risk.

The world shifts. Something is changed – for good or bad. The character reacts to this to either try to make things go back to how they were, or to make things better.

Steve Albini and Aristotle
Steve Albini and Aristotle

Steve Albini – ““When I talk about recording an acoustic instrument, what I really mean is recreating the sense memory of having heard an acoustic instrument. I say that because acoustic instruments have an extremely long tradition. Every part of the world uses some form of acoustic stringed instruments, and we all have engrained in us personal and cultural memory of these instruments. So when I say I’m trying to make an accurate recording of an acoustic instrument, what I mean is I’m trying to evoke the sensation of having heard that instrument in life.””

Aristotle opens Poetics by describing poetry as a species of imitation. There are different ways to do that, different mediums and different ways. Painting, too, is imitation, Aristotle points out.

In our stories, that’s what we do. We imitate to recreate sense memory.

Each project is different. So I approach each book individually.

Ghostwriting and Developmental Editing are about collaboration. My role is to bring an in depth knowledge of story structure and writing principles to develop and refine your vision and story into a powerful book.

My role as writing collaborator is often not as defined as these; often, I work with authors in a mixture of these four. It’s a spectrum.

Ghostwriting covers full manuscript development. It’s akin to commissioning the writing of your book. Perhaps you’ve already written an outline, a handful of chapters, or have presentations written as a place to start. Maybe at this point the book is just an idea. Through interviews and discussions, I will develop your ideas into a manuscript ready for publication. More on Working With A Ghostwriter.

Developmental Editing. If you’ve already written the first draft, or want to do more of the actual writing yourself instead of a standard ghostwriting relationship, working through the developmental editing process is your best way forward. This approach coaches you through the process as you write, keeping your book and writing on track, sharing the writing and work to finish your manuscript on your timeline and schedule. This can also take the form of working intensively on the overall structure of the work before you write it. An expert guide through plotting the manuscript, either non-fiction or fiction.

Manuscript Consultation. Gaining an outside perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of your manuscript is essential to refining your book for publication. A manuscript consultation provides you with detailed notes of what works and where some further work is needed. This is done in conjunction with discussions with you to understand exactly where you want to push the book. Without understanding your motivation and aims, the consultation is not helpful; like drawing a map without compass points. Often, after a manuscript consultation, authors find it helpful to work through some trouble chapters or particular issues in a coaching capacity.

Writing Coaching. Some writers want an experienced sounding board on the work. Some writers want to deal with a particular issue in the writing process. Other writers want a guiding professional hand through the whole writing process to deal with issues and keep them accountable. As a writing coach I can help you work through a series of chapters or the entire manuscript, at any point in the writing process.