Authors spend a lot of time editing their work before another soul reads it. At least, many do. So, it’s likely you already know that editing is a completely different skill set. But still, many authors try to forego a developmental edit to cut costs on production, asking what they can do for the narrative that an attentive author can’t.
Is working with a developmental editor worth the cost? We’ll let you decide.
It All Starts with Beta Reading
There’s a reason why some writers like to say you can get away with just using beta readers instead of a developmental edit. Because a beta read is actually part of the process! The first thing an editor is going to do is ready your story, take some notes about their first reactions with their own beta reading questionnaire, and form gut feelings. It’s the qualitative research to the developmental edit. This gives your editor the time and space to think about the nuanced experience of the reader before diving into the nuts and bolts of your story.
Next Comes the Data Analysis
After the qualitative research comes the quantitative. Editors take notes about the details of each scene in your novel. What each editor keeps track of can change, but it’s likely they’re inputting brief descriptions of each scene, what changes, the point of view, and a few other pieces of information they find relevant into a spread sheet to see the broad strokes of your story all in one place. This step helps reveal the story arcs and where they may be faltering to help diagnose places where readers might get bored, confused, or frustrated. It’s also a great place to see the big picture of how your authorial voice works and where it can be bolstered.
Followed by an Emphasis on Genre and Characters
By now, your editor has big picture ideas as well as nitty gritty opportunities swirling in their minds, but before they can make suggestions, they’ll take a moment to pause and reflect upon your goals for the piece. Books written to send direct to market will have a different set of needs than those hoping to seek an agent and publish traditionally, and it’s good to address these considerations directly.
During this time, your editor will review the genre conventions and details on your target readership in the context of your story as well as your characters’ arcs. Then they take note of which conventions and characters are working, which are missing, and whether it’s a gap that needs filled. No book will follow every traditional path in their genre or for their target readership, but enough boxes need checked to keep readers on board, and which divergences best suit the author’s voice and the story will be examined.
Then They Rebuild the Plot Structure
By now, the editor has some gut feeling about the reader’s experience, data that shows gaps and overlap, a list of possible genre conventions, and a breakdown of each character’s arc. This is the moment they first come together in a restructure of the plot. Some of your ideas are likely to be great but in the wrong place, some are likely to be duplicates that need paired down, and still you’ll probably end up with a gap needed to fill to give a character or your main plot a complete arc.
All of these elements come together to inform one another on the best spaces for these changes to be made. Editors will put together a checklist of all the ways these analyses come together for your story and make suggestions on changes to the plot alone at first. Afterward, they’ll do one more review to ensure you meet your story structure checkpoints and that the new order hasn’t created too many similar outcomes in a row before moving on.
And Finally Put It All Together
Only once your editor has put together a full picture of advice for the meat of your story, the characters and plot, then they’ll expand what they learn outward to other aspects of your story. This is when they’ll consider and give feedback on your hook, themes, tone, setting, dialogue and more to give you a complete picture of your strengths and where you may need additional work to bring the story to the next level.
It's easy to see just how much time it takes a developmental editor to make a sound series of editorial suggestions, which is what drives their costs. But with a tailored process and access to industry knowledge, it can be a sound investment in your authorial career to do one. The chances of landing an agent or seeing success self-publishing increases dramatically with the right guidance on your side. How do you find them? We’d love to help.
Comments