Developmental Edits are in!

I didn’t really know what to expect from a developmental editor. Sure, I know how I edit things and how my critique group comments on pieces, but I didn’t know how that would look from somebody else.

If you, like me, don’t know what to expect from a developmental editor, let me break it down for you!

How I found an editor?

I am lucky to be in a writer’s group run by a lovely woman who does manuscript critiques like this all the time. However, I wanted somebody who had never seen this story before and would be looking at it with completely fresh eyes. So, that left me with a search.

A few of my friends have self-published books in the last few years, so I had a lot of great references from them. There is also a growing community of writers and editors on social media. With those resources combined, I got sample edits from three different editors and was able to narrow down to a lovely editor named Brittany at This Bitch Reads.

What does an edit look like?

What I didn’t know going in was how a developmental edit works. It’s pretty simple. The editor reads through your full manuscript, makes comments where they see opportunities for changes or just general big emotions that might come from reading. You get the document back with those comments as well as something called an “edit letter.”

This edit letter can be several pages long and helps to outline strengths and weaknesses in the manuscript. For example, Brit gave me an edit letter that highlighted the summary of the story (what it’s about), conflicts and pacing, setting details, and subplots. She also summarized the character journeys of each main character and then gave general comments about the chapters she saw opportunity in.

So…what now?

This was the kick I needed to get back to writing.

First things first, I’m re-printing my manuscript in a spiral bound copy so that I can read through it fully again. Once I do that, I can start tackling some of the comments that Brit has left for me.

I think I’m going to go through this just like I did for the previous draft. I’m going to follow Caroline Donahue’s “The Next Draft” course to work through my edits in a thorough and mindful way. That includes, rereading the draft completely, making a scene structure outline with what the scenes need to do vs what they’re missing, and finally rewriting from a blank document.

I will rewrite completely because I feel like each time I do this it gets a little bit better each time. This will be my fifth draft of this book and I’m hoping it can be cleaned up well enough to get ready to send out to attempt traditional publishing. We’ll see.

First things first, I need to get to work.

Happy Writing!

Rachel