Authored by Cheyenne Clenney, UNG Press Intern
When a manuscript hits the desk for its first assessment by an editor, it will go through the first step of the editing process: developmental editing. Due to its importance of improving structure, content, and other big picture focuses, developmental editing is a crucial part of ensuring the other stages of editing go smoothly.
The early drafts of a manuscript do not need to (and almost certainly will not) be grammatically correct, but they do need to make sense; that is where the developmental editor comes in. They will assess the organization of the manuscript as a whole, ensuring the ideas are logical and coherent, evaluate arguments for strength and clarity, and assure it reads clearly to its audience (Cambridge Proofreading). Developmental editors reorganize and suggest the rewriting of entire paragraphs, unlike line or copy editors that work on the sentence level. Because entire sentences may be removed, developmental edits must be done before homing in on those edits to style and grammar at the sentence level.
The University of California Press in Berkeley defines developmental editing as “as intervention that moves content from one chapter to another, or rearranges the lion’s share of a chapter’s contents within itself, but that falls short of writing new material” (Norton). Oftentimes, these professional editors have an expertise on story structure and character arc, meaning they can recognize when parts of the narrative are unnecessary or need to be reorganized to make more sense (Oakley). They will not rewrite but pose questions for revision to the author instead; productive author and editor communication is valuable during this editing stage.
Although it is important to create a well-developed manuscript, many independent or small presses do not have the resources to spend copious amounts of time on developmental editing. In-house editing often assigns multiple people to each stage of editing, but in the case of smaller publishers, there might be overlap between developmental, line, and copy editing because it is done by the same person.
The ultimate goals for developmental editing are to polish the manuscript, prepare it for more meticulous sentence level edits, and enhance readability.
References
Cambridge Proofreading. “What is Developmental Editing?” Cambridge Proofreading, Oct. 2024, https://proofreading.org/learning-center/what-is-developmental-editing/.
Norton, Scott. Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers. University of California Press, Nov. 2023.
Oakley, Kristin. “The Importance of a Developmental Edit.” Chicago Writer’s Association, Oct. 2022, https://www.chicagowrites.org/blog/entry/the-importance-of-a-developmental-edit
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