{"id":11339,"date":"2022-02-17T06:47:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T13:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=11339"},"modified":"2024-06-20T11:20:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T18:20:07","slug":"do-you-need-a-developmental-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/do-you-need-a-developmental-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you need a developmental editor?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Shirin Yim Leos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Guest blogger, dev-editor, and author Shirin Yim Leos, answers the question she\u2019s most often asked: What is developmental editing, does it really make a difference, do I need it and how much\u2014HOW MUCH?!?!\u2014can I do for myself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Developmental Editing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the big, high level, Is the book working?<\/em> edit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does it make a difference?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resoundingly yes. Ask any author with a career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I need it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No writer can accurately see their own work. It\u2019s a fact, like refraction through water or distortion through atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much does developmental editing cost?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It varies, but here are some recently published rates in The Write Life<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to be your own Developmental Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I do it for myself?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Try to duplicate a dev editor\u2019s distance. They come to your pages cold and you can replicate that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put your writing away in a drawer for 3-6 months.<\/strong> I can hear you yelling, BUT I\u2019M IN A RUSH TO GET PUBLISHED!!!! Anyone in a rush shouldn\u2019t be attempting to get traditionally published. That\u2019s just the truth. It is a loooong process even with the best of luck. If the clock is ticking that badly for you, consider self-publishing.

Find a rubric<\/strong>, a new lens that will let you evaluate the work with some objectivity. If you\u2019re writing commercial or genre fiction, a beat sheet might be helpful. Save the Cat Writes a Novel <\/a>is often recommended. The book is backed by an entire website of beat sheets, classes, and podcasts that you can download.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re writing literary fiction, Donald Maass\u2019s The Emotional Craft of Fiction <\/a>focusses on creating and manipulating the reader\u2019s emotional journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freytag\u2019s Pyramid<\/a> in its modern rendition is useful as a draper\u2019s dummy to lay your work against; to see if what you\u2019ve made is in the actual shape of a book. (Don\u2019t underestimate this. Remember when you can\u2019t see, it\u2019s very hard to discern shape. My own work invariably has a too-long sleeve and a missing collar when it\u2019s submitted as \u201cperfect\u201d to an agent or editor. I am always amazed in retrospect by how I suspected X, Y, or Z on some subliminal level but could not see it.)

Learn as much about editing, as opposed to writing, as you can.<\/strong> I teach dev editing in my workshops<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


Buy as much professional help as you can afford.<\/strong> I used to advise writers to go to writers\u2019 conferences (here\u2019s the AWP list<\/a>) and sign up for consultations with editors. The Writing Day Workshops<\/a>, especially, focus on getting writers in front of editors and agents, and vice versa. Of course, now there is also the online equivalent of a 24\/365 writers conference dedicated to helping you get your manuscript and query in shape for pitching: Manuscript Academy<\/a>, with its extensive faculty of editors and agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In whatever conference-like setting you find us, participating editors are taking huge cuts to our fees out of good will to the organizers. Take advantage of this!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a tip: the most useful thing to have a dev editor read for a short consultation is your synopsis, or your query and synopsis, if you can squeeze it in. Save first pages for when you\u2019re sure your story is in great shape and you have focused on polishing that powerhouse first chapter.

Of course, you can also book editorial consultations through most editors\u2019 websites. It will cost you more than at a conference, but it will also be to your own schedule and in a less hectic environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want feedback on your entire book but can\u2019t afford a dev edit, many editors offer manuscript analyses that are not as detailed as dev edits. I don\u2019t offer these (I\u2019m so anal that if I read your book, I\u2019ll have too much feedback to fit into a brief assessment), but my dev editor friends Susan Chang and Lisa Manterfield<\/a> both do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Make the most of free opinions. <\/strong>Join writers\u2019 groups. If you don\u2019t know where to find one, reach out to genre-specific or regional organizations like SCBW<\/a>I<\/a> or the California Writers Club<\/a>, or organize one yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chats or cafeterias of writing conferences, classes, and events are a good place to introduce yourself and your idea of forming a group. Go to writing retreats where work will be reviewed or critiqued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Develop a list of beta readers<\/a>\u2014people you trust whom you can swap whole-manuscript critiques with. Be generous with your own time and assistance, and it might be returned to you in spades.

Of course, the aim of all this is to get your manuscript ready for an agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developmental editing sharpens your arrow for your one shot. Because, you probably will only get one shot with a particular agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to finding your many targets, here are a few possibilities:

1.  If you know the books you\u2019d love yours to appear next to, look at their acknowledgements. Nearly all authors thank their agents. (Sometimes, you have to plug a few names into Google to figure out who\u2019s who.) Build a list this way. Everyone on this list will have liked a book like yours well enough to acquire it; and been competent enough to sell it. This is what I\u2019d call a vetted and targeted list; an A list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. You can also build a list through good-old research. Websites such as ManuscriptWishList<\/a>,<\/a> querytracker,<\/a> and publishersmarketplace<\/a> make it easy to find agents, see what they\u2019re wishing for, what they\u2019re buying, what they\u2019re selling, and for how much. So you just have to do the leg work of matching the agents who do X to the X you want doing. Then, PLEASE, visit their websites, browse through their client lists, and read their submission guidelines before querying. Be a professional! Do your homework!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. If you can, compile a list through networking. They say the average first novel takes seven to nine years. In all that time, hopefully you\u2019ll have become part of a writing community. Ask all the published authors you know whether they would recommend their agents. Always ask what they like best about them, and what is most challenging. Depending on your personality, some traits are deal breakers. If an agent sounds good for you and your book specifically, ask that author friend if they would mind giving you a recommendation. This is not something pushy, desperate, and despicable. This is how most agents prefer to acquire their new clients!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. When you have your lists of agents, see if you can find them at conferences\u2014the Writing Day Workshops are organized specifically for this purpose, and Manuscript Academy provides a very similar service. Attend classes and workshops these agents give. See if you admire them as professionals and like them as people. And see if they like you! Pay for a consultation. This may not be a pitch, depending on the conference, but it is exposure. At the very least they\u2019ll have seen your work and given you real feedback on how to further sharpen that arrow for the next agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until then, happy writing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHIRIN YIM LEOS<\/a> is an Ezra Jack Keats Award-winning author and a developmental editor. She has coached writers who have secured multi-book deals from Big Four publishers, and was the founder and former Head Goose of Goosebottom Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shirin also leads writing retreats and teaches writing and publishing for universities and conferences internationally. You can find out more about her services and her twenty published books at shirinyimleos.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest blogger, dev-editor, and author Shirin Yim Leos, answers the question she\u2019s most often asked: What is developmental editing, does it really make a difference, do I need it and how much\u2014HOW MUCH?!?!\u2014can I do for myself? What is Developmental Editing? It\u2019s the big, high level, Is the book working? edit. Does it make a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[1721,339,1728,1718,1725,1722,1724,1723,1719,954,1716,1717,1726],"class_list":["post-11339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-beta-readers","tag-california-writers-club","tag-freytags-pyramid","tag-lisa-manterfield","tag-manuscript-academy","tag-manuscript-wish-list","tag-publishers-market-place","tag-query-tracker","tag-scbvwi","tag-shirin-bridges","tag-shirin-yim-leos","tag-susan-chang","tag-writing-day-workshops"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-2WT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11339"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13283,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11339\/revisions\/13283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}