About the work

A closer look.

Send a draft of up to 2,000 words, plus one line about what you want it to do. What comes back, within three days: 1. Three breaks, named. Not "the pacing is off" but the exact place where the piece stops doing what it promised, and what it does instead. 2. Where each break hides. The line I would cut or change, quoted so you can find it. 3. The one change that matters more than the other twenty. What counts as a break: a sentence that overreaches what the piece can support. An argument missing the step it needs. A citation that says something narrower than the claim. A paragraph doing two jobs. An ending that explains what the reader already understood. What I will not do: praise you to soften it, invent a flaw to look rigorous, or rewrite the piece for you. If the draft holds, I say so in one sentence and spend the rest on what does not. If I cannot find three real breaks, you pay nothing and I tell you that. Limits: 2,000 words. One revision after your rewrite. Your draft is never shared.