Developmental Editing

A developmental edit is the first option for professional editing. It typically takes place after the first draft is finished, several self-editing rounds, alpha reader suggestions, and more revisions. Check out the page Your Editing Steps for an overview of, well, your editing steps.

Developmental editing is a thorough analysis of the big picture items of your story. These are things that could change the entire plot or require major rewrites. Scary! But important. You don’t want to have major mistakes in your book. Publishers rarely offer this type of edit. After all, they get many many manuscripts, and to win them over, you must have a powerful story already in place.

So, what are these massively important things a developmental edit will look at? Perspective is a major one. Consistency is key. A major error many authors make is head-hopping. Heard of this, but not sure what it is? Check out the blog post Head-Hopping.

Especially if you are a new writer, head-hopping is a common mistake.

However, even well-seasoned authors may accidentally do this even if it’s just once in the entire manuscript. Sometimes, head-hopping can be subtle, and it is hard to be objective about your own work. A developmental edit should catch head-hopping and point it out. If it happens a lot, the editor may even help you determine which perspective is most well-suited for particular scenes and chapters.

Another perspective issue is first, second, or third point-of-view. Most authors determine which of these they want to write in before they start. Though less common an issue, it still happens occasionally where this slips in and out. A writer is deep in their character’s head and starts writing “I” and “you” without even realizing it was originally “she/he/they.”

Is your third-person point-of-view objective, limited, omniscient, or limited omniscient? Is your first-person point-of-view central, peripheral, omniscient, embedded, or retrospective? Is second-person point-of-view even a thing? It is! And your story should be largely consistent in any of these you choose.

Related, tense changes are also common. While a story can have multiple points-of-view, most keep to one tense: past or present. Occasionally, a manuscript may intentionally switch between these two tenses, but only in certain types of scenes and when needed for the plot. It’s much more likely for an author to accidentally switch between the two mid-sentence or mid-paragraph and then back out again. A developmental editor will point this out and explain the issue if it happens.

But perspective isn’t the sole focus of this type of edit. Most stories have a main plot or two, but they also usually have subplots. A developmental editor’s job is to make sure all of these plots make sense, are connected, and get completed.

Subplots sometimes get entirely dropped from a story, and this can leave a reader wondering what the heck happened. There could be a subplot so far removed from the main plot it may serve absolutely no purpose to the story being told. Occasionally, characters just wander off the face of whatever planet or universe the story is in with no explanation. Sometimes, even the main character will vanish, and the main plot gets taken over by a supporting character until the main pops back up and takes over again. A developmental edit will look at all of this.

Is your story linear? Or does it jump back and forth through time? Does it take place over a month? A year? A decade? And do the details actually match the timeline? This will be reviewed as well.

A developmental editor will also point out flimsy character development and consistency issues and do the same for setting. Does the main character suddenly have a personality shift with no explanation? Does a secondary character serve no purpose to the story? If there is a new culture, a new species, a new social class, will they make sense to a reader? Are they explained well and consistently? These all need to be well-crafted. When writers live in their story for so long, sometimes something seems obvious, but a new person won’t have a clue without a solid explanation. New worlds, magic systems, languages, and more all need explanations. But let’s also explain without info dumping! Because an editor will catch that too!

Pacing is an important element to a story. Does the story slow down and seem to not go anywhere for chapters at a time? Is an important scene rushed? Is a multiple point-of-view story excessively focusing on one character at the expense of another despite their mutual plot importance?

These are just some things a developmental editor looks for in a manuscript. All are very important. A new author will likely benefit from a developmental edit regardless of what kind of story they have. However, not all manuscripts need a developmental edit. If a story is straightforward, let’s use a romance with one point-of-view in a small town with no traveling as an example, this may not need this type of edit. An epic fantasy with six perspectives, three worlds, a brand-new magic system, and multiple plot twists would likely benefit from this edit.

A full developmental edit will result in two helpful things for an author:

1)      A thorough editorial letter with detailed sections of positives and negatives as well as specific issues and various brainstorming ideas.

2)   In-manuscript comments highlighting specific well-done sentences, suggested spots for changes, direct questions, etc.

Developmental editing is expensive. I’m not going to lie. An author and editor may contractually agree to one (or two or even three) round(s) of editing, meaning once that round is done, it will go back to the author for revision or to answer major questions. But the editor will actually make several passes through the manuscript to focus on certain things per round. This takes exponentially more time than simply reading the manuscript. Editors want to be thorough and offer you the most beneficial advice to help your story really grow into its potential.

There is a smaller (faster, cheaper) version of a developmental edit: the manuscript evaluation. In this, there is an editorial letter that will describe some major strong and weak points of your manuscript, but it will not go into heavy detail. There may be an example of a common problem throughout the story, but it will not point out most of the specifics. There won’t be brainstorming ideas to help you fix the holes. And there are few or no in-manuscript comments and points of reference. But the largest issues will be pointed out and explained in the letter so the author can go back and fix them.

A developmental edit is big picture. The editor will not fix the manuscript for the author. They will not clean up technical issues or point out the character’s shirt changed color in the middle of a scene. They will not research or fact-check. Check out the Different Types of Edits post for a recap of the differences or check out this page for a summary.