Dear X,
I know you either haven’t actually written this novel, or else you have, partially, but it’s hiding somewhere in a recovery file in your laptop that you can never remember how to find, and that you get dyspeptic when you see the filename.
The reason I’m writing, in spite of you never having engaged my services, is that as I read through your imaginary book, which I can do whenever I want on account of it being something I imagined (sry), I find that all my editorial notes sound like sayings from weird needlepoints hanging on the wall of a house haunted by metaphors.
They’re kind of kitschy— the embroidery floss devolves into rats’-nests of color near the edges and they’re way overcrowded with words. But currently, as I imagine it, your kitchen walls are either bare or they sport a bunch of art prints you inherited from an older sibling.
So here’s the deal: as one of my teachers in grad school said once, “the best metaphors are also real.”
OK, my notes follow. LMK if you have questions, and whether you know how to set up the bank wire you now owe me.