Story Consulting

Your Characters Deserve
a Second Opinion

Readers can't always name what's psychologically false in a story — but they feel it. I help authors, screenwriters, and studios get the mind on the page right.

Request a Consultation
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Sensitivity readers check for offense.
I check for accuracy.

I've spent sixteen years in rooms with real trauma, real grief, real addiction, real recovery. I know what dissociation actually looks like in a conversation, how avoidance disguises itself as charm, and why people say the opposite of what they mean at the worst possible moment.

When your character's breakdown, diagnosis, therapy scene, or recovery arc rings false, the reader loses trust in everything else on the page. My job is to make sure that never happens.

Psychiatrist · MD · US Army Veteran · ∞ Books

Referral Services

What I Consult On

Every engagement is confidential and scoped to your project. NDAs welcome — I sign them for a living, effectively.

Service 01

For Authors
& Novelists

Manuscript Consultation

A psychiatric read of your manuscript — full or partial — focused on the interior lives of your characters. You get a written report plus a call to work through it together.

  • Character psychology audit: motivations, defenses, and blind spots that hold up under scrutiny
  • Trauma, grief, addiction, and mental illness portrayed accurately — without the clichés
  • Therapy and clinical scenes that sound like the real thing
  • Diagnosis plausibility check: does the label you gave your character actually fit the behavior you wrote?

Scoped per manuscript — inquire for rates

Service 02

For Screenwriters
& Showrunners

Script & Series Consultation

Script coverage from a clinical angle — for features, pilots, and full seasons. I flag what an audience will feel is false before a critic puts it in print.

  • Scene-level notes on psychological authenticity, from dialogue to body language
  • Character arc continuity: does this season's breakdown follow from last season's wound?
  • Portrayals of psychiatrists, therapy, medication, and hospitalization that professionals won't laugh at
  • Veteran and military storylines reviewed by someone who has worn the uniform

Per script or ongoing retainer — inquire for rates

Service 03

For Studios
& Writers' Rooms

Story Development & Writers' Room Sessions

Live sessions with your team — building characters from the pathology up, breaking a season around a psychological arc, or pressure-testing a premise before you commit a budget to it.

  • Character "intake sessions": build a psychologically coherent character file before page one
  • Writers' room Q&A: bring me your hardest questions about how minds actually break and mend
  • Premise pressure-testing: would this person really do this? Here's what would make it true.
  • Ongoing development retainers for series with mental-health themes at the core

Half-day, full-day, or retainer — inquire for rates

The Protocol

How It Works

01

Intake

Send the inquiry form below with a brief description of your project, format, and timeline. I reply within a few business days with fit, scope, and rates.

02

Consultation

We agree on scope — a manuscript read, script coverage, or live sessions. NDA signed if needed. Then I do what I do: read closely and diagnose precisely.

03

Report & Rounds

You receive written notes plus a working call to go through them. Follow-up questions during your revision are part of the engagement, not an upsell.

Request a Consultation

Tell me about the story. Every inquiry is read personally and held in confidence.

Consultation Intake — Confidential Form CX-01

Confidential. No obligation. Replies within a few business days.
This is consulting on fiction — not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Inquiry received.

I read every referral personally. You'll hear from me within a few business days.

Story consulting is a creative and editorial service provided to writers and production teams.
It is not psychotherapy, medical advice, or a doctor–patient relationship.
No paid diagnoses. Ever. — that goes for book reviews. Story consulting is the one thing on this site with an invoice.