Hiring an editor to review your work before you e-publish it or contact a literary agent is mandatory. I realize that editors cost money—some more than others—but having a trained professional with an eye for the developmental editing process is priceless and beneficial to the storytelling quality of the narrative. The developmental edit will pick up on macro-sized issues throughout your novel, including the logic of the plot, the depth and purpose of each character and how they connect within the plot and to each other, and how well the general and specific themes are interwoven within the subtext.
A developmental editor knows literature far greater than just enjoying reading literature as a pastime or writing a short story. An editor sees the beauty between a paragraph’s lines, creates either complete or ambiguous endings, and is able to distinguish subtext and theme that the writer might haven’t even realized he or she had incorporated. Read more to understand why hiring a developmental editor to examine and review your draft of a novel you hope to publish is the most important choice you will make along your literary path.
The Developmental Edit: The Most Important Phase
Without a doubt, when an author uses a developmental editor to examine issues in their novel, it is not a small task. A developmental edit is an entire, thorough read from the beginning to the end of your book. It takes weeks and sometimes months for an editor to finish properly this phase. Pages of notes and track changes will be written for the author to improve upon. From irrelevant description or corny dialogue that doesn’t progress the plot or enhance the character to illogical choices that retract and contradict the character’s personality is all researched and noted.
A developmental edit will take on the major task of completing two issues:
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The author has created a well-written main character.
The MC’s backstory must be fleshed out—even if it isn’t written in great detail on the page (It shouldn’t be. Backstory should be understood and not necessarily written in full).
The MC is likable and dislikable, therefore making him well-rounded and not a cardboard cutout. The MC’s choices make sense. In a novel of 100,000 words, it can be somewhat difficult to remember every moment and decision that a character makes. The job of the developmental editor is to keep track, write down, take notes, and get inside the mind of the MC to ensure that his or her choices are logical. A developmental editor will also look at the side characters and use the same tactics. Secondary characters are equally as important because they play a part in the choices of the MC.
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A developmental editor will examine the plot.
Some stories successfully merge plot and character. Otherwise, they become solely literary fiction (character-driven) or commercial fiction (plot-driven). Whatever type of story, an author should tell the developmental editor beforehand.
If an author wrote a literary fiction novel, the developmental editor would focus on the character’s desires (to prove to himself that he isn’t a deadbeat dad). Character pushes the story forward here and a developmental editor will help the author flesh out—completely—every facet of every character that will provide a full and realized story and ending.
If an author wrote a plot-driven story, the developmental editor would examine logical choices made by characters resulting from external conflicts. Whether or not those external conflicts come from other characters or other situations (weather, etc.), the MC has an external goal to achieve (to save the princess). Proper pacing is important in plot-driven stories. Too much plot and the story becomes confusing or unrelatable because the character is ditched to spotlight the plot.
What a Developmental Edit Doesn’t Include
The developmental edit begins and ends with macro-sized problems noted by the editor. These macro problems are the most important and logical way to begin editing your story. Fixing these big problems first is the best way to approach a novel edit because they are the foundational problems that hold up all other problems. Once you have solved these foundational issues, the others are much easier to fix.
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Copy editing
A developmental edit does not include any restructuring of language from a copy edit. Synonyms and fluffy rewriting of sentences to enhance the pizzaz of a character’s dialogue or prose are only done at the copy edit level—not during a developmental edit.
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Proofreading
A developmental edit does not include correcting grammar or punctuation mistakes. The proofread edit can be done by the author. Usually, an editor will use the Chicago Manual of Style to help edit your fiction. I suggest you get one and cut down on any problems. Save yourself some money and time and do the low-level edits yourself.
The developmental edit is not about book sales, success, or respect as an author. Those factors should come with the author and how well the overall story intrigues the reader. The developmental edit is about producing a coherent and logical story of plot and free from bad characterizations, cliché’s, and boredom.
Related questions:
Should I get beta readers to give feedback instead of a developmental editor?
No, because beta readers aren’t trained to analyze for structure or psychology of the character. As someone who took multiple professional college courses and had my work reviewed by beta readers, the quality of feedback was mostly a joke because they didn’t analyze my work from an editor’s perspective. Instead, they reviewed it from a reader who just wanted a fun and interesting read. That isn’t enough. However, whenever a creative writing professor examined my story, the review was much more in-depth.
A developmental editor can work with you about the structure and character motives. They understand it. Beta readers likely don’t. They’re just not qualified or experienced in that arena. You wouldn’t hire a baseball player to be your financial advisor, would you? Hiring an editor with experience in editing novels makes way more sense than hiring someone who just likes reading novels. DUH!
If I get a literary agent, will he or she send my novel to an editor anyway? If yes, then why should I hire a developmental editor now?
The likely main reason a literary agent took on your novel was that your novel was improved because you had hired a developmental editor to examine your story at a macro level. At this stage, it makes the jobs for the literary agent and a future editor of their choice much easier because the edits that will be made are not as substantial. It saves them time and money. If a literary agent were to take on your book without you having had a developmental editor, the editing process would likely take much longer and could even cost more money for them and you. Getting your novel polished by an editor beforehand makes the publishing process far smoother.
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