My goal as a developmental editor is to help you craft a well-organized and compelling non-fiction book, article, essay, or digital narrative. The purpose of developmental editing — sometimes known as structural editing — is to ensure that the overall architecture of the work conveys your argument and evidence effectively and with grace.
A developmental edit can be a great way to generate some enthusiasm when you’ve reached that mid-manuscript slump, or to boost your confidence as you start to rework a dissertation into a book. Having someone do a deep dive into your work and think hard about its structure and flow really helps you see its strengths in a new light.
Vilja helped me immensely with an extensive grant proposal. When I first reached out, I only had a vague idea about my research topic. With her support, I went from a rough outline to a full proposal in a matter of weeks. Each time I sent a new draft, she sent back detailed feedback, edits, and thought-provoking questions to guide me through the process. When I finally turn this proposal into a book, I would gladly work with Vilja again.
– Daniel DeRock, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Radboud University
Types of editing
Working with a developmental editor is not really about improving your sentence-to-sentence writing as such. Even the best wordsmiths can benefit from working with a developmental editor, because the process of a developmental edit aims to give you new insight into the structure and flow of the work as a whole.
Developmental editing, then, is very different from copy editing, which mainly aims to fix grammatical errors, typos, and infelicitous phrasings in a piece of writing. It is also quite different from line editing, which goes beyond copy editing to rewrite sentences and occasionally reorder paragraphs to improve the flow of the prose. If you like, I am certainly happy to do line editing as well, especially in a later stage of the work, even though my main focus is on developmental editing. Copy editing is usually done by the press as the last stage before galley proofs.
Developmental editing is also quite different from the kind of feedback your colleagues generally provide. Developmental editing focuses on using form (the structure of the book, the presentation of the evidence) to make the most of the research you have done, rather than on making suggestions about the content and argument. I work with scholars from a variety of disciplines, so I am generally happy to leave most such suggestions to subject-area experts. My emphasis is on providing you with a fresh perspective and helping you write the book that you want to write.
What to expect
The process is usually as follows:
We talk about your work in a brief meeting, and if we agree that I would be able to help you, you send me what you have so far. This may be a draft of a manuscript, a dissertation waiting to be turned into a book, or a book prospectus or outline with notes—or, in the case of a journal article, the draft of what you have so far.
I read what you have provided (keeping in mind the priorities you had expressed in our meeting or other communication) and then provide you with a lengthy document that explains what I think you could do to improve the manuscript. Once you’ve had a week or two to digest that document, we’ll have another meeting to discuss how it helps you shift your work in a desirable direction and whether there are any points that need rethinking or clarification.
That can be the stopping point. However, if you wish, we can return to later iterations of the manuscript, either in terms of further developmental editing or in terms of line editing, i.e., closer crafting of the text. (If we agree, I can of course do line editing during the first pass as well, but it can be more cost-effective for you to keep such editing to a minimum at the initial stage.)
I am also happy to consult on earlier stages of a project, either as a one-time report and discussion or in a more sustained fashion. Sometimes known as “book coaching,” this process can start at any point after you have an idea of what it is that you are planning to write about.
image: “Scholar Interrupted at His Writing” (variation of a painting by Gerard Dou). Panel (wood by form), oil paint (paint), n.d. Science History Institute. Philadelphia. https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/7s75dc890.