Developmental Editing: Content and Structure

What Kind of Editor (or Editing) Do You Need?

There are a lot of terms bandied about with regards to editors. A lot of the time writers find themselves confused with what is meant by different terms, and there are a number of explanations on the web (like this one from Masterclass of which I’m fond). For the purposes of my editing tips and advice, I’m going to focus on three stages: developmental editing, copy editing, and proofreading.

Now Marie, there are five types of editing listed on that Masterclass page you linked to. Why yes! Yes, there are. I think they explained the types well, so I link to them, but they’ve taken it a bit farther than I believe is really necessary. I personally wrap structural editing into developmental editing, and I find that there’s not enough difference between line editing and copy editing for there to be much value in differentiating between the two. (Most of the time an editor will pick up on typos while line editing, and a copy editor will often notice if a sentence doesn’t flow correctly.) I’m also going to point out that I do refer to editors in this (like I just did), but really all writers should have a grasp of a manuscript’s stages of revision. Most of these steps can and should be taken by the author in addition to an editor, if any.

Developmental editing and structural editing are both big-picture focused. Line editing and copy editing are more focused on the specific words used, and have a much narrower focus. Typically line editing is focused on style and how the text sounds or feels. This would include how it flows, how well the message is communicated, and the emotion and tone of the text. Copy editing is where an editor would chase down spelling and grammatical errors, inconsistencies, or confusing sentence structure. (Copy in this case means the specific letters on the page.) Mistakes in verb tense could, in theory, bring on a conversation about the pros and cons of present versus past tense (typically considered during the developmental phase), but most of the time the copy editor would simply correct for the preferred tense. Proofreading comes last, and doesn’t involve making any changes at all unless there are typos. (Formatting should be done before proofreading.) A proofreader will not reword sentences for clarity, nitpick word choice, or suggest further explanation in a confusing segment. The proofreader will only mark missed (or incorrect) punctuation, typos in spelling, and after this pass, the manuscript should be print ready. If you are hiring an editor, often they may offer “editing services” which include all of the above. That doesn’t change the fact that the three stages should all happen, and in that order; copy editing before you’ve finished character development is dumb, you’d just have to do it again. Proofreading only works if you’ve finished everything and think it’s ready to be sent to print or publish.

Developmental Editing

Developmental editing can be done in conjunction with outlining from before the author begins writing. Not all of us have that luxury, however, so many writers take their completed draft to a developmental editor who will break down the story’s outline, check if there are any major story beats missing, and work with the writer on heightening the characters, plot, themes, and tone. Be prepared to rework large sections of the text if the developmental editor thinks it’s necessary!

This is the time to consider plot holes, runaway trains of thought, and make sure that the characters aren’t flat or boring. Cohesion is important, and you’ll definitely want to make sure that you didn’t make continuity mistakes (a character who starts out blonde and then is suddenly described as black-haired, buildings that exist at the beginning are later across town or don’t exist at all, etc). For me, “content” is the who, what, when, where, and why of the story. The how is where the “structure” comes in.

I discussed the concept of a story bible back in September and October as I was going through novel preparation resources. This is a good place to fill in any details you missed. If you don’t have one, start one now so you can keep track!

Who is the story about?

Consider your hero, heroine, or group of primary characters. Are they compelling and realistic? (For fantasy authors, I don’t mean realistic in the sense of reality versus fantasy.) Realistic characters have strengths and weaknesses, make mistakes, and are sometimes searching for a desire they haven’t even admitted to themselves yet.

Are your characters following their goals in a believable path? Do they give up too easily, or get too set on one path that isn’t the best one? Character development is beneath the superficial details; they must lack something at the start of the story and grow as a character as they figure out how to accomplish it.

What happens?

Check to make sure that you have the plot points in the proper order, and that you didn’t miss anything. Sometimes this can be as simple as checking to make sure your outline and your story match. For those of us who don’t plan so well in advance, we may need to go back and write the outline so we can see it all laid out. Plot development is all about making the most of your scenes, conveying the mood and tension without beating your reader about the head with it.

Are all your scenes making progress towards the end goal of the story? Especially in NaNoWriMo drafts, it’s easy to get off course when your focus is on getting words on the page instead of the quality of the words.

Is the story too predictable? Do you have any fascinating reveals?

When does the story take place?

While the plot may be told in chronological order, that’s not always the case. Sometimes the author jumps around. Sometimes flashbacks are the easiest way to explain why things happen the way they do. Telling a story with flashbacks is great… if they’re used well. If not, you’re just jumping around and confusing your reader. Definitely don’t make a habit of jumping around without making it clear you’re doing so. I once edited a story that confused the heck out of me, only for me to realize at the climax that it was being told out of order. (Not kidding, I was 85% of the way through it when I figured it out.) Please don’t do this. Yes, it has been done. Yes, it can even be well done. No, don’t do it just to shake things up. That’s not what it’s for.

The question is what you intend with your timeline. Do you want things to build gradually? Do you want to have someone tell a story about something that happened, or do you actually want to have a flashback and show every detail? The difference may be in what the storyteller’s perception of it may be, versus what happened from other points of view. 

Where does the story take place?

Sometimes writers write scenes at arbitrary places like “a bar” or “a coffee shop” because they don’t really know where they want to set the scene until later, or the setting doesn’t feel important to them. I can promise you that it is important. A coffee shop is a great place to hint at characters with routines. Do they go to the same place and order the same thing every day? Do they laugh and joke with the baristas and know them by name? That’s character development, right there, and all it takes is setting a scene in the coffee shop on the corner. Sometimes generically set scenes can be enhanced with simple changes like a joke between a customer and a cashier and it adds depth to that character. Do any of your characters need that little extra oomph?

The same can be true for developing a neighborhood or city. Is the diner run down, with tired waitresses who drag their feet, and smoke on the windows from a decade before when people could still smoke inside that hasn’t been cleaned? If you want to reflect a city in the midst of gentrification, some of the neighborhood may look great, while some changes… have you picked places that logically would have the highest turnover? Did the “everyone’s favorite” bakery get a facelift instead of getting replaced?

Why did you write this story?

Many if not most stories can be boiled down to a ‘what if’ question. Do you know yours? This isn’t just an expression of someone or something happening, there’s a reason you wrote the story. What was it you needed to explore? Were your characters clamoring to tell you about something in particular? There’s no right or wrong ‘what if’ questions, and some are as much about ‘what if I showed the public what it feels like to be like this’ as some are about situations, or people, or coincidences.

How did you build your story?

There are a lot of reasons to write stories the way we do. Often, writers tend to write it the way they thought of it, and then I ask how they chose a story structure and there’s this blank look that is very clearly confused. Choose. That’s the verb in that question. Don’t just wing it because it happened that way. Think about your story. Did you choose the right inciting incident? A conflict doesn’t have tension if you give away all the information up front, and a resolution isn’t very interesting if you know how it will end from page one.

Many of the above questions overlap in some way with the structure of the story. The plot line and the path a character takes to come into their own are both aspects of story structure. Some plots have a structure built in. The hero must learn about event A before they can go off to challenge person B, get their butt handed to them, get saved by person C and nursed back to health in place D where they discover a whole new way to go about the problem. Whodunit mysteries are also often straightforward, because there is a series of events that have to lead the investigator to the big reveal. That doesn’t make them easy to do well, it just means you know how you need to go about the plot. Details can be just as hard to build as the primary plot points. Having the hero not know the heroine was adopted makes a bigger impact if she tells him after he makes some kind of sarcastic remark. Does it change the plot? No. Does it change the path of the characters’ own development? It might.

Then there are related questions. If you changed the point of view of the narrator, could it improve the drama? Is it as important to have the reader in the dark as it is to keep the hero from seeing the solution? Some of my favorite romance novels are not convoluted plots or elaborate characters, just two people that come together and grow to like each other. The reason the novels are so gripping is precisely because of the timing, and where the little blunders happen around the bigger mistakes as they learn about one another. Is the groom getting drunk at his bachelor party going to ruin a wedding? Probably not. Will it cause heartache if there’s a DUI or worse he didn’t mention to his fiancé? Hell yes.

It can be hard to choose consciously if you like the way your story is written. I think we get better at knowing how to build the story the more experience we have with writing, but even experienced authors sometimes have to work out why something is underwhelming. If you’re at the point where you might want developmental editing, either to do it yourself or to hire someone to do it for you, try looking at some basic “how to write a novel” guides. Anything that is a preparation exercise can be done after your first draft, and then used to enhance the book further. Even the contents page of a novel-writing guidebook might be a great place to create a checklist from. Check that you didn’t jump to do things a certain way because that’s how you always write, or because that was the only way you’d thought of at the time. Confirm that you can’t come up with any other way to get the desired story told. The best way to tell a given story isn’t always the first or even the only way to tell it.