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After finishing your novel, you may be wondering what the next steps are in order to perfect what you have. Some writers like to work on first edits by themselves because of how raw and personal the first draft is; others like to turn to outside readers such as friends, family, and beta readers who will be able to assess their manuscript more objectively.

Some turn to professional book editors to assess their manuscript. Although it’s not a free service, this avenue allows for a professional with years of experience to offer serious, informed advice and critique.

In this article, I’m going to break down the difference between two types of editorial services: developmental edits and editorial assessments. You may have heard of these terms if you’ve looked into working with an editor. However, with how similar they sound, how do you decide which service is right for you and your book? This article aims to help you decide by giving you the most vital service of all: knowledge.

To add a quick disclaimer: everything I’m going to say comes from my perspective and approach when working with a client. Other book editors may define these services differently or have a different perspective.

Defining “Structural Editing” or “Developmental Editing”

Let’s start with talking about what the two book editing services have in common. Both developmental editing and editorial assessments fall under the category of structural editing, which is my specialization.

When you picture what book editing might look like, possibly the image of red markings on a white page correcting grammar and spelling mistakes comes up. However, this kind of sentence-level editing–which encompasses proofreading and copy editing–isn’t typically the most useful at the start of your novel editing process. Since you still might make big changes to the plot, dialogue, characterization, and organization of your novel, more typos and sentence-level mistakes will arise, making these editing services potentially irrelevant after the first few major edits.

On the other hand, big-picture editing–also known as “structural editing''–will offer a holistic perspective on your manuscript in order to determine its overarching strengths and weaknesses. A structural edit, whether that takes the form of an editorial assessment or developmental edit, is often one of the very first steps you take after completing your novel.

The goal of structural editing is to help you build a strong and sturdy structure for the story; you want to make sure all the scenes that need to be included are there, that plot developments happen in the right order to maintain reader interest, and that your characters are overall realistic and compelling. These are things that a structural editor will help you refine so that the puzzle pieces of your novel neatly come together.

As a structural editor, here are some of the things that I will pay close attention to when reading a client’s manuscript: plotting, pacing, character development, structure and organization, scenes to cut down or expand, and the impact of the ending.

Once again, grammar and spelling are not included in my list. Fixing every language error will certainly be a part of your book editing process, but it shouldn’t be the first thing to focus on. In my opinion, addressing the bigger picture issues of your novel should come first, with sentence-level issues being addressed later.

What Is an Editorial Assessment?

Now that structural editing has been defined and separated from copy editing and proofreading, let’s go over the tangible differences between the developmental edit and the editorial assessment, starting with the latter.

An editorial assessment is a detailed document with feedback on what’s working in your current draft and what could be improved. The biggest thing to note with this service is that it doesn’t include any direct edits to your manuscript itself. Think of it like a detailed and constructive report on your book draft.

The goal of the assessment is to help you locate your manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses. For me, editorial assessments also include tactical recommendations on how to revise and strengthen the story so that it provides a combination of big-picture feedback–such as suggesting further development of a character’s backstory–as well as specific, tactical recommendations–such as moving the placement of a certain scene.

There are many situations in which you might benefit from an editorial assessment, the most basic being if you know there are problems in your draft but don’t know where to start. Some writers come to me after they’ve been staring too long at their draft and need to break out of their rut through a more objective, professional lens. If you want feedback on overall plotting and development of the story, getting an editorial assessment is perfect, as it will largely provide feedback on the shape and structure of your manuscript.

The assessment can also be helpful if you want to understand how your book fits into the broader publishing market. For example, you might want to figure out whether you should lean more into the romance storyline or the suspense storyline to best appeal to literary agents and publishers.

For writers who haven’t had a professional review of their book, I always strongly recommend starting with the editorial assessment, as it will give a road map to revisit your novel with, offering a clear vision and path through the weeds of editing.

What Is Developmental Editing?

The most obvious way a developmental edit differs from an editorial assessment under the umbrella of book editing services is that it includes comments and edits directly on your manuscript draft.

My developmental edits primarily come in the form of comments I leave via Microsoft Word’s tracked changes. The reason my developmental edits focus on scene-by-scene comments goes back to my approach to structural editing as a whole. After the developmental edit, you likely will make significant edits to the manuscript, as you might remove dozens of pages or add chapters from another character’s point of view, so it just makes sense to start broad and then work your way down to more sentence specific editing.

In the developmental edit, I’ll leave questions, notes, and recommendations on each scene. I might call out passages to expand, adjust, omit, or move. I will also note points of confusion or specific lines of dialogue or narration to tweak. My comments ultimately focus on overall plot and character development on a page-by-page basis. That said, I also can’t help but correct the overly obvious grammar or spelling mistakes, so I also leave light in-text edits as well.

A developmental edit is a great step to take in the following scenarios. If you’ve already worked with beta readers and/or had a professional editorial assessment done and are looking for deeper scene-by-scene feedback, by nature the developmental edit will be more specific than the editorial assessment. The feedback and comments will be tied to particular points in the manuscript.

A developmental edit is also a good idea if you're looking to troubleshoot very specific parts of your story. Perhaps you know that the second half of the novel needs to be cut down to speed up the pace, but you just don't know what to cut and are having trouble “killing your darlings.” That's where a developmental edit can really prove useful to show you the specific passages that you could cut.

A developmental edit could also just come down to a matter of preference. Some writers simply prefer to receive feedback directly in their manuscript draft, particularly if this is closer to what they had in mind when they originally were thinking about hiring an editor.

On that note, often if you're interested in pursuing a developmental edit, the editor you're speaking with will offer to provide a sample edit of the first five to ten pages of your manuscript. This is a really great way to set expectations and ensure that the editor's style of feedback aligns with what you're looking for.

Book Editing Considerations

The last point to keep in mind when deciding between an editorial assessment or a developmental edit is the price. Personally, I price my developmental edits higher than my editorial assessments, because it takes longer to work through the manuscript if I'm stopping on every page, or in some cases on every paragraph, to provide comments and suggestions.

In an ideal situation, a writer would begin with an editorial assessment to get big-picture feedback on their draft. Then they would revise the manuscript according to the recommendations from the assessment before pursuing a developmental edit for more specific page by page feedback. That gives you the opportunity to check if the revisions you made actually address the weaknesses that were pointed out in the assessment, or if they were just band-aids haphazardly stuck on without really healing the underlying issue.

But going through two structural edits just isn't an option for everyone, which is completely understandable. If you're struggling to figure out which editorial service works within your budget, I encourage you to speak candidly with the editor you're considering. They will help you choose the option that will suit your needs and give you the most bang for your buck.

Ultimately, the truth is that there is no one size fits all to writing or editing or publishing your book. Everyone paves their own path, and that goes for choosing book editing services, as well. Whether you pursue a developmental edit or an editorial assessment is your decision to make; just be sure to find a book editor who you really trust and who's truly invested in helping you along your journey.

Hopefully this article demystified the book editing process, defined editing service terminology, and helped you find a path forward to work productively with your editor.

Thanks so much for reading and happy editing!