Category: Developmental Editing

Grim ReaperI once read an email to another writer from a zine editor about how he handled manuscripts. “The first thing we do is cut. We cut and cut and cut.”

The more I edit, the more annoyed I get with that comment because that’s how the editor led his message. Editing does involve cutting, but bragging about it is not the best way to instill confidence in a writer. It reminded me of a college professor I had who bragged he failed 80% of his students. If you’re a college instructor doing your program’s capstone course, and 80% of your students fail, maybe you should consider another line of work. I look at editing the same way. 

Now, I’ve known my share of great editors over the years. Ellen Campbell (who gleefully calls herself “the Cutter,” but I’ll get to that in a minute), Jim Thomsen, and Stacy Robinson, my first and still only developmental editor. All three of them make suggestions. And they have good instincts when the writer will have anxiety over a change. Ellen, in particular, wants to be challenged. To her, that’s an opportunity to both teach the writer and learn something. 

But going back to my early days writing, I can recall a rather well-respected freelance editor who admitted she felt she had to be openly hostile to a manuscript. Two years into this job, and I still ask myself, “Why?” 

Of course, anyone who writes begins with the attitude of red ink and red track changes are “a dagger to the soul.” I’m not making that up. A would-be writer from my days of cosplay (when it was just weird grown-ups in costumes) said that as we made a go of a Klingon-themed fanzine. It’s fine in the beginning. We all get precious about our work. It’s our passion. But there comes a time where, if you’re serious, even if you’re just throwing books up on Amazon, you have to start shedding your artistic pretensions. Everyone thinks it’s cute when you walk around the house clutching the manuscript to that first novel, muttering, “My baby! My baby!” I did that, and I have a rather…complicated attitude toward my first novel. You also have to quit being precious about the prose. Sure, Anne Rice once openly bragged about how “Every word is perfect!” No, it’s not, Anne–May you rest in peace. I’ve read a couple of your books.

 

In his classic writing book, On Writing, Stephen King outlines what I’ve modeled for novels. First, write with the door closed. King says this is so you can focus on the story. Now, having been the inspiration for a couple of other writers, I can honestly say it’s also so your friends, relatives, and coworkers won’t kill you. Too many writers want everyone else to read excerpts from whatever they wrote today. No one wants to read an unfinished story because you haven’t finished it yet. Trust me, I got burned in the fanfic days for not having a long-ass trilogy fleshed out ahead of time. (I was a notorious pantser until I got into original scifi.)

King suggests cutting 10% of your first draft. Why? You’re throwing in everything because you don’t know what you need. I describe what I do in a copy edit as trimming the fat. In a dev edit or a story analysis, I trim a LOT of fat. But those changes are structural. In a copy edit, I look at it this way: Was is not your friend. Run-on sentences are bad. Droning on and on about some side detail just bores the reader. King is emphatic about zapping anything ending in “-ly.” Some editors get livid about describing eyes moving, though I’ve always found that to be more annoying than helpful. 

My personal pet peeve are the walk-ups, first pointed out to me by television writer and producer Lee Goldberg. Lee got annoyed when the star (and executive producer) of a show he wrote for insisted on “walk-ups” or “drive-ups.” Since this actor started out in sports, memorizing dialog was more of a challenge than, say, Henry Winkler, who made up a Shakespeare soliloquy on the fly when he forgot his lines in an audition. It was more training than skill as I recall the guy being a fair actor in action roles (and a couple of turns in comedy.) The star wanted scenes where his character drove to the scene, got out of his car, walked up to the door, and knocked. Like this explanation, the walk-ups took up a lot of space.  I’ve noticed them in quite a few manuscripts. 

Cutting is trimming the fat. Bragging about cutting is just showing what a bad ass you think you are to the writer. Cutting and explaining why you cut is in service to the reader and helpful to the writer. That 10% King talks about can be trimmed organically and without rancor. All hostility does is instill fear or a strong urge to get away from a person. If it’s the editor, trust me, they’re not going to have a lot of work. If it’s the writer, well, having a few diva moments of my own on that front, I can attest to the backlash you get for it. 

Open journal and pen.

Originally posted to Reaper Edits

Early on in this space, I talked about the different types of editing. Most people think of copy editing, cleaning up the prose and trimming the fat. Sometimes, people think of a proofread, which is a once-over of a manuscript looking for typos. But what is a developmental edit?

This is where you let someone take your story apart and put it back together in a smoother order. This is where you kill your darlings. That scene you thought was pretty clever but doesn’t add to the story? Here’s where you cut it. Is there an event with no explanation how it happened? Your dev editor will point that out. It’s a long drawn-out process, and it can crush a writer’s ego. That’s not intentional. It’s just having someone tell you there’s more work to do.

Now not every story needs a developmental edit, but if you ask me for one, here’s what you’re paying for:

First off, I read your manuscript. My TBR stack gets put aside, or I spend less time on it to focus on your work. I will go through the manuscript once, make a few notes. Then I reread it, making an outline. Here’s where the structure comes into view. This is what needs done before you and I have our first phone call or online chat. I’m going to suggest changes you might not think necessary, but remember, I’m a disinterested party. So will your reader, even if they are a fan. (Yes, I take the series as a whole into account if the story belongs to one.)

Once I’ve done a couple of read-throughs, I will make notes on issues I see and ways to strengthen the storyline. This is where it gets daunting for the writer. Stacy Robinson, who helped pull my The Children of Amargosa into shape, called me out on some of my sillier whims. It can be disappointing, but it makes a story better. You may find it funny. The reader likely will skip it. Too many skipped sections, and hey, Amazon’s full of other books. And the indie bookstore beckons.

We discuss this in a phone call or online, no more than an hour. A writer will want to talk longer about their story because, hey, it’s their story. I get it. I’ve been there. My wife no longer cares what I write because I will go on and on about the new scifi series I’m working on or how the latest chaos in the city of Monticello will make the Holland Bay series the second coming of Bosch. But resist that urge. You’re here to work, and you’re paying an editor. I, like most editors, will add to a bill if it gets excessive.

At the same time, do not allow an editor to monopolize your time or your story. A friend of mine, who’s become a fair editor in his own right, sent me the notes he got back from one rookie editor. I pretty much exploded when I saw the notes. The comments in the Word doc were longer than the paragraph where she highlighted one sentence, and their first phone call was six hours long. Plus, the suggestions amounted to basically rewriting the story the way the editor would write it. That should be a red flag. So while I, the editor, don’t want to spend more than an hour on the phone/messaging app/video chat, chances are you don’t, either. This stage of a dev edit is hard on the writer. Don’t make it harder on yourself or let the editor hijack your story. Besides, you’re going to be doing the hard work of revision. Even in a copy edit, if a paragraph needs a lot of work, I highlight it and comment on what the problem is because it’s not my place to completely rewrite a passage.

The goal of the first real-time conversation is to decide what you’re going to keep and what you’re cutting. (Not to mention adding. It’s really easy to assume the reader knows something you neglected to explain.) Maybe come up with a new outline. And maybe you’ll decide this isn’t for you. I won’t put dollar amounts here because rates change from what’s on the site as of this writing. So to begin, I’ll charge about 40% the total estimate up front. The beginning is where I will do most of the work for you, and you may decide this isn’t working. No harm, no foul. We just don’t continue. For the next phase, where we go over your revisions, we’ll have some more realtime conversations or quick emails. Once you’ve gotten the story to where you want it to be, I’ll review the new manuscript. We’ll have another conversation, and we decide where to go from there. Unless there’s still a huge amount of work to do, this phase will be 35% of the estimate.

The final 25% goes for a copy edit. And you will need a copy edit. We just took your original draft and did the equivalent of a home renovation. With all the deletions, additions, and shifting of scenes/chapters, dialog will get out of sync, scenes may need proper context, and who the hell is Gwendolyn the Evil Sorceress, who wasn’t in the original version? This part I’m willing to waive if you want a different copy editor. And while I’ll happily take your money, fresh eyes are never a bad idea. In fact, some of my copy-editing business comes from referrals from another developmental editor for that very reason. But that 25% amounts to what you’ll pay with some of the more affordable copy editors, so unless you’re on a deadline, we take a short break, and I start treating it like the next stop is your agent/acquisitions editor/Kindle Create.

So there you have it. Is it money well spent? It never hurts to have your story taken apart and reassembled. After all, you want it to be the best it can be. However, you might not need that type of work. A copy edit might be in order. Pretty much every manuscript needs a copy edit whether by the writer themselves or someone else. On the other hand, if you’re shopping for an agent or trying to land a publishing deal, a full dev edit, including copy, might be in order. It won’t be the end. Agents love to rearrange things. Acquisitions editors will want to nudge things. And with even a small press, you will be copy edited. Again. I copy edited a novel I didn’t realize was a bestseller over a decade ago and had been slated for rerelease. The author thanked me for my insight. Was his last editor sloppy? No. But unless the Hemingway estate dumps For Whom the Bell Tolls in their laps, a good publisher will go through a manuscript again. There’s always room for improvement, and as long as the editor knows what kind of edit to use and allows the writer to make the revisions, it will stay true to the original.

Wadded paper

Originally posted to Reaper Edits

So what is it I do for a writer?

Nothing. I do it for the reader. That is the writer’s ultimate client. Sure, they have to consider bookstores, distributors, agents, and acquiring editors, but whether the author is writing independently or going traditional, my job is to get them closer to the reader. A publisher’s copy editor might have a whole new round of red ink after I’ve worked on it. That’s to be expected. I recently edited a book for Down & Books I did not know was a rerelease. (I also did not realize the author was from the UK making a slight adaptation for a US audience. That’s another topic.) So I treated it as a new book, a little caught off guard by references to recent events. As it turns out, the book was not only a best seller fourteen years ago, but it won awards. So, did I disrespect the previous editor?

The average book is about 80,000-90,000 words. That’s a lot of words. A short novella can go as low as 20,000, as my most recent project did. There, a writer with some skill in self-editing can get most of the glitches that pop up in every manuscript.

But what does a writer need?

I do three kinds of edits, though one is not technically editing and not something I offer as part of Reaper Edits. I do developmental, copy editing (a blanket term that can mean line editing, actual copy editing, and scene editing), and beta reading.

Developmental Editing

If you’ve ever been through one of these, and I have, you know they can be absolutely brutal. They take a long time and should either include a copy edit or a referral to someone who copy edits. I get referrals quite often from a developmental editor. Many of them call themselves “story coaches,” and that’s pretty accurate.

The old saw says to “Kill your darlings,” and every major writer from Hemingway to King says that. Douglas Adams would have you destroy the space-time continuum killing them, but I’ll save that for my author blog. Developmental editing is where that happens. That scene you thought was hilarious? Or an emotional tour-de-force? Yeah, the reader’s probably going to lay down your book or delete from Kindle and move on to something else. It’s not that these scenes aren’t important. It’s that they may have served their purpose, which is to allow the author to get into the characters’ heads. They now know something they didn’t know.

But it’s more than that. Scene shuffling to improve flow. Keeping character names consistent, as well as their voices. Grandma Burns might be a foul-mouthed old lady, but unless the story requires it, she’s not going to suddenly sound like Ian McKellan reading the Magna Carta to a roomful of kindergartners. Steve had better not become Gwendolyn, not without an operation or some gender identity issues the reader’s going to want to know about. Otherwise, the reader will ask, “Who is this? And why is she messing with Steve’s stuff?”

Many editors brag they cut and cut and cut. Too many, if you ask me. Yes, you need to trim the fat on your story, but bragging about cuts basically says, “It’s about the editor, not the writer, not the reader.” And a dev edit may also add material. How about a chapter to explain something? How about expanding that scene to show instead of tell? Maybe a recap (without hitting us over the head with it) of earlier events or even previous entries in a series? These are things a developmental editor looks for.

Do you need a developmental edit? I have an editor friend who swears every story needs a dev edit. It’s the old saw of “Well, I have a hammer, so it must be a nail.” At the same time, his writers are pleased with him and his colleagues. So, who needs a dev edit?

Is it a new type of story for you? Are you an inexperienced writer, especially one who wants to traditionally publish? Also, it’s 2024. You may want to do a sensitivity check. As an author, I’ve generally had good beta readers point out where things went over a line. Remember, it’s your story, but you have to eventually find an audience. Also, an editor versed in the genre can steer you toward audience expectations, even if you plan to subvert them. You need to know what expectations you are subverting and why, as well as what they won’t tolerate.

And a dev editor can help you find your own voice. It’s a lot of work. It can be ego bruising. I had one potential client send me three abusive emails when I declined to rework his manuscript. Editors are not there to pat you on the head for your genius. (Except mine. I’m a friggin’ god! Aaaaand my wife is rolling her eyes at me.) They’re there to make you better, and they don’t have a stake in the story. But it’s worth the effort if that masterpiece you finished three months ago suddenly looks like an episode of Hoarders.

Copy Editing

Copy edits involving trimming and streamlining the prose, getting rid of repeated words, and minimizing passive voice. This is what I do. So what do I do?

First, I use a tool to look for inconsistencies in spelling, abbreviations, capitalization. Those are quick hits. Then I do what’s called a crutch word check. Every editor is different. One editor, whom I consider the queen of copy editors, has a lengthy list of words she does not want to see in a manuscript. And the list grows. Some look for adverbs, but most writers these days are so adverb-averse that I hardly see them. I start with three words: Very, suddenly, and just. Very and just are two of the most overused words in manuscript. They just annoy me very, very much. Since I utilize track changes in Word, I can go through and put back instances I struck out when I read them in context. Suddenly is a word which must be driven out of a manuscript like snakes out of Ireland. (Yes, I know. That’s a myth. St. Pat had good marketing. And probably introduced stout as a replacement for mead. Okay, that’s enough faux Terry Pratchett.) I actually am bummed out when I end up leaving more than one “suddenly” in a manuscript, even in an anthology. It’s usually a useless word, though I find the odd case.

Occasionally, I get an anthology where the senior editor is Michael Bracken, a short story writer and editor I’ve known for many years now. As an editor, Michael’s pet peeve is “got.” So, the last antho he put together, I decided he’s the client. (Actually, his publisher was the client, but I ask Michael questions as I work.) I thought I’d do him a solid and go after got. One story had it every other line in dialog, and the writer of that particular short made it work. I gave up. So, Michael, if you’re reading this, I tried. (It happens.)

After that, with another tool, a go through the manuscript line-by-line looking for passive voice, repeated words, misuse of “that” (when separating clauses. You usually don’t need it.), sensitivity checks (not as common as social media would have you believe), and my personal pet peeve, the run-on sentence. Boy, do we all write a lot of run-on sentences. I’ve occasionally gotten (Sorry, Michael) a “Yikes!” back from an author. But as a writer, I can sympathetically respond, “I know, right?” (Works best if you read that in the voice of Bruce from Family Guy.)

If a sentence can’t be reworked without rewriting it, I flag it in the comments with an explanation. If it needs rewritten, the writer is the best judge of that. Also, I don’t flag every instance of passive voice. Sometimes, active just sounds stupid, especially in description. She may have pouty lips, but the reader’s likely to throw the book across the room if her lips pout.

Is/was is not the writer’s buddy. Neither is “started/began to…” when the action is not interrupted or doesn’t intensify. Water may start to boil, but he should walk toward the door, not begin to walk toward the door. Unless she stops him.

Drive-ups: I’m probably the only editor who calls it that, but it’s an old concept. If you spend a lot of time describing your character’s habit of grabbing wallet, keys, and phone, getting in the car, starting the car, and pulling the car out of the driveway/parking spot, I am so going to flag that. They reader does not care. I also get the impulse to do that. I came up with the term after hearing Lee Goldberg, an author and television writer since the 1980s, describe a producer’s need for “drive ups.” The producer was also the star of the show and demanded each scene start with his character getting out of the car, walking up to the door, and knocking on it. This actor came from pro football and didn’t like having to memorize a lot of lines. So he would inevitably ask, “Where are the drive-ups? The walk-ups?” (I also noticed that show improved when Lee got promoted on the staff.)

Beta Reading

Beta reads. The poor man’s edits. Usually done for trade between writers. A finished story should have at least one beta read. I want four, but I have regulars who will do it for me. There are no rules for beta reading. One will tell you, “It’s good” or “It sucks.” If that’s the end of it, it’s a waste of time. Hopefully that beta reader tells you at least why. Most will make notes. Some will copy edit and find typos earlier edits missed. (Remember that reissue I did? And that originally came out through a major publisher.)

While there are some beta reading services, and one I know of fills out a standard questionnaire, usually, they’re free. Which means it’s a volunteer effort. The reader might infuriate the writer, but remember, you asked. Occasionally, you get a dud. For me, one did not, apparently, ever see The Martian or watch an episode of the many Star Treks with their captain’s/personal logs. Also, I think they were trying to backdoor sell me a dev edit. (Editors, don’t do that. It’s hard enough to market what we do without someone being an overbearing ass about it.) We parted ways, though I did get a suggestion that became a core part of one of my series characters. I have a cadre of three readers who are good about asking me if I’m out of my mind? Or flagging where I assumed the reader knew about this minor event mentioned in chapter 5 from a much earlier book in the series. Or just because one character is a bigoted scumbag does not mean I have to use his loveless language. Beta readers can help with or without an editor. We’re all human. And every edit can cause or reveal more glitches to be fixed. We all want to be perfect, but I even found a glaring problem in a Lawrence Block novel. And I learned to write from his books on writing.