Editing

Developmental Editing, also called substantive editing or in-depth editing, is appropriate if you are in the beginning stages of writing a book or if you have a partially written manuscript and want assistance moving forward. Developmental editing is also useful if you need to substantially “book-doctor” or revise a full-length manuscript.

Developmental editing begins with a conversation over the phone, Skype, or in person to discuss your vision and goals for the book. I listen carefully, ask questions, offer suggestions, and collaboratively brainstorm how you might get from A to Z, or maybe Y.

Usually I work with you for the time it takes to complete the writing project. I too want the best for your book and to do so I consistently draw upon my life-time of heavy reading, my decades of editing, my training and experience as a writer, and my instincts. Below are some of the issues that I most often address.

• What is the book’s core premise and why does it matter?
• How will your book build upon, extend, or disrupt what other authors have previously published?
• Who are your readers?
• How can you structure your content to communicate persuasively to readers?
• Should you use narrative examples to illustrate abstract ideas and if so, which examples will be most relevant and how to weave them into the text?
• Is your material coherent? Relevant? Fresh? Readable?
• What content belongs in an introduction? A conclusion?
• Does your text have a satisfying beginning, middle, and end?
• How will you fully and clearly develop your ideas?

Outlining or mapping your material plays a crucial role. If done in advance, this kind of planning can often, but not always, save a lot of headaches later on in the process. Other times, a developmental edit will entail dismantling an existing structure and building a new one. Most published books go through at least one round of developmental editing.

To a lesser or greater extent, developmental editing includes line editing. (See below)

Line editing, also called close editing, or copy editing, is the detailed editorial work that I do on a text to make your prose clear, concise, and readable. All good writing is rewriting, to paraphrase Truman Capote, Roald Dahl, Ernest Hemingway, and others.

I use the track changes function to tighten language and clarify meaning. I focus on the flow of ideas, transitions, tone, word choice, and style. I cut redundancies and suggest expansions. I address issues of grammar, punctuation, usage, consistency, and clarity. I comment on unclear ideas, query items that need your attention, highlight passages that still need work, and reformat the occasional bulleted list or confusing font.

The beauty of track changes is that you can go through each of the suggested changes and choose whether to accept or reject as you make additional revisions. When circumstances warrant, I still have some red pencils on hand to edit directly on paper manuscripts.

Light editing is a lite version of line editing (See above) and is appropriate for your polished manuscript. This is when I take out my highest magnitude lens and search out stray phrases, awkward idioms, and the occasional obfuscation. I also offer opinions on aspects of the manuscript that I think could still be improved.

Line editing is not to be confused with proofreading. As the final step before your manuscript goes to the printer, a proofreader will check the surface type for errors.