Example of a Developmental Edit

You’ve heard that a developmental edit can lead to breakthroughs, improved writing, strong storytelling, and a much better book. But maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, but what exactly did the editor say that led to those changes? What does a developmental edit actually look like?” It all sounds mysterious and potentially scary.

I get it! I’ve been where you are. So in this post, I’ll give you an inside look at my first developmental edit on my young adult fantasy novel. I’ll show you excerpts, screenshots, and margin notes from the editor, include notes to put them in context, and tell you what I learned and what changes I made. 

Setting the Stage: My First Developmental Edit

First, some housekeeping: Although my early manuscript bears almost no resemblance to the novel it became, some of the character names and places are the same. To avoid people conflating this draft (which will come no closer than this to seeing the light of day) with my completed novel, I have chosen to redact certain names and replace them with generic labels.

Keep in mind, every book and every editor is different. Every book has unique strengths and weaknesses. The feedback is tailored to the writer and their work. These examples are merely to show you what one particular developmental edit looked like.

Let’s start with what kind of feedback you’ll find in this example and in almost every developmental edit. (If you missed it, this post talks about the nuts and bolts of dev editing, and what you should know to start.)

Kinds of Feedback Included in a Developmental Edit

Developmental editors usually do two things:

First, they read the manuscript with tracked changes enabled, leaving comments and sometimes making minimal changes to the text.

In-line comments can include the editor’s reactions and thoughts on: the story and characters, points of confusion, pacing issues, plot holes, structure, and more. Often, they’ll also leave comments celebrating the things they enjoyed, found funny, and were entertained by

Second, they write a letter with their overarching feedback based on reading the entire manuscript. This letter usually offers suggestions for how to address the main issues they’ve identified.

Both the comments and the editor letter reinforce each other. 

The patterns and issues an editor notices while reading and leaving comments lead to the feedback they’ll come up with in the editor letter. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read the comments yourself! I’ll talk more about this in my post on how to evaluate and implement feedback.

Alright, let’s get’s started.

1. Pacing and Story Structure

Another super useful type of feedback is about pacing. The comments tell me when the editor is losing interest, tempted to skim, and feels like the story is lagging.

Usually, pacing is a symptom of a deeper issue, so just knowing that the pacing isn’t working won’t immediately tell you what’s wrong and how to fix it, but it will help you notice potential problem areas.

In my book, the pacing problems were inextricably connected to the deeper structural issues in my story. I didn’t hit the plot points I needed to hit when I needed to hit them.

Let’s take a look at comments about pacing from my first developmental edit.

This comment occurs shortly after a POV switch:

“I find myself feeling the desire to skim, to just keep going. I want to get back to [the main character] and what’s going on with him.”

What does this tell me? The pacing problem could be because the editor simply doesn’t enjoy this point-of-view character. The following comment reinforces this:

“…the problem is I don’t care much for [the villain’s] storyline and tend to start skimming, because I want to get back to the good stuff…”

Here again, the editor is telling me she isn’t enjoying the villain’s POV and doesn’t find him gripping:

“I’m starting to feel like skimming. I’m not all that interested in [the villain] or his [weapon]. 

“He feels like many other villains who take pride in their evilness.”

Pacing comments can also help you identify story structure issues. Take this one as an example:

“To be over 30% in I feel like something should be happening, but nothing is yet.”

In this story, instead of the plot taking off by the 25% mark like it is supposed to, nothing had happened yet. (K.M. Weiland’s information on story structure helped me start fixing these issues, but there are lots of other fantastic approaches.)

Any time the editor lost interest, she left me a helpful comment so I could pay closer attention to that section:

“I’m skimming. Kind of trailing.”

Now let’s look at what the editor said about pacing in her feedback letter. Notice what she says is causing the pacing issue:

Editor Letter: “The story doesn’t seem to begin until about 50-60% of the way through the book. Even then, it’s just because [the main character] suddenly decided to search for [the macguffin]. Your summary of the book made it seem like THIS was the point of the whole book, yet it didn’t matter until way past the halfway mark.”

“The pacing drags, which will kill your readership. The most common mistake for authors to make is to start too early in the story. It’s good for the author to know the story backwards and forwards, but the reader doesn’t need as much information.”

Her suggestion is to start the book later, and to restructure the plot.

Editor Letter: “At the end of the day, you’re telling one story while saying you’re telling another, but neither are clear enough to have complete control. The story ends the way a TV episode would…but not the final episode in the series. It feels like the second to last episode, ramping everything up to the final climax. You’d said you’re planning a second book…but I’m confused as to how there could be another entire story after this one, which was already 10k shorter than the “average” length.”

“My recommendation is a restructure…”

These structural changes were the biggest hurdle for me. My book went through multiple iterations to get the plot hammered out and the plot points happening where they were supposed to.

**If you’re wondering what kind of changes I made based on this feedback and a later developmental edit (when my novel was in much better shape), check out my post on the benefits of a developmental edit.

2. Point of View

One of the things that my editor reacted to the most frequently as she read was the number of point-of-view characters in my manuscript. I had a lot!

Check out these comments at various points in my manuscript where I switched to a different point of view:

“Another POV?!”

“Aaaaaaaand another POV.
That makes….seven.”

“Wait who? We’re shifting POVs a third time in one chapter?”

“The breeze has a personality and a POV now?”

“This is now [MCs] POV? We didn’t have a POV break… But this is very much [MCs] POV.”

“Why do we keep moving to different POVs? Especially to characters that aren’t who I want to hear from?”

These comments were helpful because it told me two things: switching to different points of view was annoying the editor, and she wasn’t interested in all of the point-of-view characters. Clearly, I needed to pay attention to the ones she claimed not to have an interest in.

What I ended up doing: I cut all the extra POVs and wrote the story from my protagonist’s perspective.

3. Genre Considerations

Since my book was written for the young adult audience, the editor also pinpointed potential issues in my manuscript, things that wouldn’t appeal or work for a young adult audience.

Here, she talks about the number of point of view characters (as mentioned above) but extends her recommendation to avoid including adult points of view. In this version of my manuscript, I included several adult point of view characters including the villain and the main character’s mother.

Here the editor is commenting on the mother’s POV sections:

“So many POV changes. And for YA, that’s not usually a wonderful idea. And if you DO do it, almost never should you go to an adult. It’s a common mistake as we, as adults, tend to find the adult characters interesting and want to tell their stories. But if she’s going to be a continuous POV, I’d strongly advise reconsidering (although maybe you’ll change my mind. It’s possible. You ARE the author, after all)”

“Again for the YA crowd I warn against doing things from an adult’s perspective.”

She also talks about word choice and genre fit. Here is her comment on a particular sentence from my manuscript: “Her face was wood-spritely and mischievous.”

“You use some fancy big words if we’re directing this at YA. Some is fine, but I feel I even have had to look up more than my fair share. Just something to keep an eye on :)”

Changes I made: I followed the editor’s advice to eliminate the adult POVs.

4. Characters

Seeing how the editor reacted to my characters was also extremely helpful. 

This is a comment about the main character’s mother:

“I don’t enjoy [this character]. She feels weak. Not weak as a character, but weak as a person.”

And here’s a comment about one of my side characters:

“What a horrible little thing [she] is. Who attacks an old lady?”

The editor loved one of my characters consistently throughout the story. Notice how she also identified an issue with the overall characterization of the manuscript at the same time.

“I think [side character 1] might be the most interesting character I’ve encountered. At 20% into the book, that could be improved upon.”

The editor had consistently negative comments about one character I had intended for readers to love. Here are her comments from the editor letter: 

“I really don’t like [this character], which shows up in my comments… I don’t understand her, so when she starts hurting the characters I care for most, no excuse is going to make me accept it.  I don’t see [her] struggle. I see a bratty [girl] who doesn’t like being treated like a [girl] so she ditches and blames [others]. That’s how it feels… Am I supposed to feel bad for her? Am I supposed to have empathy for her just because she’s young? …If that was your intention….[she] is exactly who you need her to be. If you want the reader to love her…they need to understand her and her reasons for things. Telling us why [she] is doing it isn’t enough…  We have to feel it for her, with her, in order to accept her betrayal.”

Clearly, I had lots of things to work on here!

These comments led to major overhauls in my characters and I’m happy to say that now, the character this editor hated is appropriately beloved.

5. Worldbuilding

My editor also had lots of things to say about the worldbuilding in my book: things she liked, things she found confusing, and things that seemed questionable for the time and feeling of the world.

Here, she comments on the technology:

“I don’t understand the world I’m in. I don’t understand the technology. It feels old – almost medieval but maybe not quite that old, yet there are trains and cars?”

Here, she is surprised that I included eucalyptus trees in my world: “When the movement ceased, she found herself in a grassy park, shaded by eucalyptus trees.”

“Really? Fascinating! Not what I expected.”

And here, she is commenting on the use of the word “packing plant” in this sentence: “The bands of mourning on her arms seemed to swell and grow; they melded with the brown light of the packing plant as it sucked her in and swallowed her.”

“That seems like such a modern thing.”

She also noted things that she could picture:

“I know what the city and the landscape look like, but I’m at a complete loss for the people.”

And she pointed out that the use of “snow leopard” didn’t seem to fit this world. I eventually changed this to an invented word for an in-world mountain cat.

“[The main character] knows what a snow leopard is?”

Here are excerpts from her editor letter, reinforcing what she found in the comments:

Editor Letter: “[The principle city] is strong in geolocation. You can feel the dusty streets and the sort of Middle Eastern desert city. There were a few times I was confused on things that mattered… but I didn’t have trouble feeling like I was there.

The rest of the world, however, feels shallow. While I can feel and see [the city], I don’t understand its people, religious practices, slang, or rules. There’s talk of gangs and of [gang territories], but rarely do they come up. City life isn’t well developed or explored. I know where I am and what it looks like, but I don’t know what it’s like to live there.”

She also commented on the technology:

“The problem is, I can’t tell if your world is a once modern world that was plunged back into the pre-digital age by Chaos, or if you are creating a fictional world with one piece of modern technology that doesn’t really fit.”

Changes I made: This took time, but I was able to improve the world and the people, making it possible for readers to picture the world they were in and understand it.

6. Style and Readability

Although developmental editing primarily focuses on the overaching big-picture stuff, sentences, paragraphs, and word choice are the little gears that move the story engine forward. Just as a machine with rusted and grinding cogs wont’ work as well as one where the pieces fit together smoothly, confusing or disorienting sentences make the story stall.

It’s always nice to know which sentences are strong and that the editor liked. For example, in response to this sentence: “Sunlight speared Jack out of his dreams” the editor says:

“This description totally works for me.”

When she read this sentence: “The fog lifted at dawn, swirling away in a humid, salt-tinged breeze” she comments:

“I like this sentence.”

She also noted sentences that she liked, sentences that confused her, and things she didn’t “get.”

For example, in one section, I was describing one of my characters: “Her hair was short and tufty, and her skin was the velvet black of tuskar wood. A dagger snarled from her fist.”

“The dagger snarled?”

The editor’s reaction made it clear that I should re-evaluate my description here.

Editor Letter: “Be very careful of purple prose. There are multiple sentences that felt confusing or forced for the sake of sounding flowery. Purple prose is never okay, but especially not in YA. Stories are much faster paced, simpler stated, and plot driven.”

Her suggestion:

“When rewriting, read the sentences and the dialogue out loud. You shouldn’t stumble or catch on the words. Also, remember your audience wants to know what happens next. They shouldn’t be bogged down by flowery description. More isn’t always better.”

What I did: I toned down the metaphors (or got rid of them entirely), and made sure my writing was grounded in concrete details. I like the result!

7. Moments of Confusion/Disorientation

One of the things that helped me the most was having the editor tell me what parts of my writing didn’t make sense. Although this may seem like a line edit issue at first glance, this kind of feedback and comment can help resolve issues that bring the reader out of the story, or confuses the character’s motivations, plot, and even the action of a scene.

For example, in a description of action, the editor experienced a moment of disorientation because I didn’t explain how the character moved. She couldn’t picture it.

“Wait what? He’s suddenly up against her? When did that happen? She was looking at his eyes…”

In others, the writing itself was to blame. In this sentence, I was trying to write out a list of things that the character felt simultaneously during a chaotic fight, but the sentence construction makes it feel like one thing caused another unrelated thing.

“How did his ribs give way with a hit to the chin?”

Again, the way I described action, left the editor feeling confused. I was being too poetic rather than grounding the reader in the scene.

Commenting on the sentence, “He rushed and leaped and ducked. Bits of the sky clipped into his vision. His toes felt the sweep of the drop” the editor says:

“I can’t quite figure out what’s going on. Who is where and doing what.”

What I did:  This feedback helped me figure out where I needed to better orient the reader, and sparked a quest to improve my action sequences.

8. Repetitive/Unnecessary Elements

The editor also noted areas that she felt were repetitive or simply added nothing to the story.

For example, she left this comment at the end of a chapter with yet another point of view character:

“I don’t know what the point of this chapter is (maybe it comes later) but my gut instinct is to say it should go.”

She also identified sentences that repeated information in a new way, like the second sentence in this segment: “Somehow she’d expected her wishes and fears to create paths of escape, never-ending roads into the wilderness. She hadn’t wanted this journey to end.”

My favorite editing fix is “delete.” I’ve found that cutting things can often be the quickest and easiest solution to some story problems.

But before we move on, I wanted to mention a couple of things:

What It Felt Like to Get This Feedback

First, the tone of these comments is blunt. The editor doesn’t pull any punches. This is what I like to call an editor’s bookside manner. This style won’t work for everyone! In fact, it is one of the considerations I discuss in my post on how to choose the right developmental editor (and avoid the wrong one).

It’s a good idea think about the tone and approach you’d like and appreciate in your feedback. Hopefully, you’ll be able to get a feel for the editor’s style in a sample edit to figure out if you are a good fit. 

In my own journey working as a developmental editor, I have learned to lead with curiosity and respect, Remember, your book is your book and you get to decide what to do with it.

Writer and teacher Allison K. Williams says in her book Seven Drafts, “Developmental editing is an informed, professional opinion, but an opinion nonetheless.”

Second, it’s important to note that this was the first time I’d shown my book to a professional, and finding out just how far it fell short was painful. Would my easily-wounded and fragile creative self have been better served with softer wording? Maybe. But it’s also possible that nothing could have made getting this feedback easier. It’s hard to say.

I’ll talk more about how to handle critique in my post about mindset.

How to Make the Most of Your Dev Edit (plus a money-saving secret)

By now, it’s probably clear that developmental edits, though awesome, are not going to fix your book all on their own. You will still have a lot of work to do to sift through the comments, evaluate the feedback letter, brainstorm additional solutions, and then do the nitty-gritty work of making changes.

In other words, you’ll need self-editing skills in order to get the most out of your developmental edit and make the most out of your investment.

But here’s a secret—those same editing skills you need to implement your developmental edit feedback and transform your next draft can also be used before you hire a professional editor to help you:

• Get the highest-level, most useful feedback possible
• Save money on editing costs (by not having to put your manuscript through multiple dev edits)
• Go into the edit with skills and confidence, knowing that your money won’t be wasted

Next: Save Money on Developmental Editing Costs By Self-Editing