Testimonials
“Thanks so much for your edit of the first Combined Service novel! My beta readers loved it ardently, but I felt as if something was missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Your advice roped, wrassled and hog-tied it, giving me the guidance I needed. Thanks to your keen editorial eye, I was able to set the hook for the rest of the series and enmesh readers even more tightly in the struggles of the Magnetar’s crew. I thank you, and Able Spacer Charlie Cooke may not know it yet, but she’ll thank you, too!”
“Let me just say this, as a testament to Wendy Delmater Thies’ editorial skills. Without her, the beginning of my horror novel WIP would have been COMPLETELY different.
“We’d moved a chapter/scenes that occurred later on in the novel to just after the beginning, with a scene to lead to the moved portion at the start of the book. Then we needed scenes to have the moved portion fit in its new area.
“That was the major change for the first few chapters. There were LOTS of other major changes, but for the purposes of the grant application, the first few chapters, up to a certain wordcount, were handed in. And… I got the grant: $12K CDN.
Wendy transformed the beginning of my novel.
I got the grant.
That’s it.
Powerful, huh?
With her, you know for SURE you have the basics covered. And then some.
Hire her.”
“The author reads slush for a speculative fiction magazine, and her insights are eye-opening. I’m 20% in, and (Writing the Entertaining Story) has already given me several hypotheses about why my full-length novel is still getting rejected after a year. The short, quality-dense lessons have made this quite the page-turner.”
“Wendy has, at the time of my writing this, edited three of my novels under the Fenian House imprint—In Flux, Becoming Real, and Agency (with Robert Auerbach). All three are better novels for her contribution, which was not limited merely to catching errors or omissions. Wendy pointed out blind spots in my writing where I was repetitively over-using words or phrases, plot details that I hadn’t fully explained, and places where I had not leaned into the interactions between my characters as much as I could. She called to my attention a continuity error in Becoming Real that I hadn’t yet resolved, and places in In Flux where I could lean more into my setting by selected changes in spelling choices and speech patterns.
“Wendy has not merely improved my books; she has improved my writing.”
“I worked with Wendy on refining one of my short stories. With a careful eye, she spotted continuity errors and helped focus the piece on what mattered – the character.
“After Wendy went through my piece, I found something i was missing; confidence.”
“Wendy helped me maintain consistency through out my short story. The notes helped with story logic, world building, and naming conventions. The final edits gave me the confidence to send the story out into the world for publication. “Shotguns and Jinn” was published in Pulp Literature in 2019.”
“Thank you ever so much for your edit of The Hacker of Guantanamo Bay. You helped me mature the manuscript. The characterization, the setting, the character development are all richer, and the sentences have all their adolescent awkwardness removed. Even the hackers are more fully human. I really appreciate how you helped me mature the plot, working with me to produce a more satisfying ending. Thanks to your help, my manuscript is now grown up enough to brave the world of agent queries.”
“Wendy gave me the push to improve my novel, taking the time to go through the details and ensure that the final product was spot on (a fantastic eye for descriptive detail!!).
“She provided many tips and insight throughout that process which was invaluable. I’m very glad to have worked with Wendy as I learned a lot along the way and feel very confident moving forwards.”
“Unity’s Schism had two separate timelines that merged at the end. I knew that making the time shifts clear to my readers was challenging. Wendy shared my concerns and showed me a way to make the shifts cleaner and less jarring. Thanks to her suggestion and her other conscientious edits, the final novel is a relatively effortless read.
“My The Sheriff of Oblivion is a complex tale with many character backstories. She showed me how to fix a lot of issues and smooth out the narrative. I’d also struggled with giving the main character a consistent voice of confident toughness while making mistakes in adapting to a strange world. Wendy’s suggestions amplified his voice. The novel was a much better product after each round of her edits.”