developmental editing services

developmental editing services

The Importance of Developmental Editing Services

1. Benefits of Developmental Editing

The most noticeable benefit of hiring a professional for developmental editing services is the ability to gauge problem areas of a manuscript. Writing for others is possible at its earliest stage, and that makes getting professional guidance that much more important. Having one specific person help improve a manuscript can benefit an author much more than a group of people working separately. A professional editor will help the author maintain their style, tighten up the narrative, and may suggest plot developments that can make the final project that much more engaging to readers. Users who struggle to self-edit often lack this help because they cannot identify the problem areas of their novels. Lone writers could benefit more from developmental editing than those who work with a team. Even the simplest – free ones – errors may not be noticed without developmental editing or a developmental editor.

It has been said that writing is an art, but it’s also a skill that takes time to mature. A good story is a result of numerous rounds of editing. A first draft is just a start; no author is published without a lot of correction. Ernest Hemingway rewrote the ending for A Farewell to Arms 39 distinct times because, as he puts it, “The first draft of anything is shit.” For those who are just starting and have yet to come up with something that they have revised time and time again, before you start adding your own type of style, plot, and creating good descriptions, it may be more beneficial to work with those who offer developmental editing services.

2. The Role of a Developmental Editor

As a writer for hire, an author has to be aware that he must do the work that is needed to fill the gap that is in his market. If his novel is like any other of the bazillion books written on the same topic with the same structure and the same characters and the same outcome, most likely nobody is going to be interested in reading it. At the Articus, our Developmental Editors work with writers to help them improve their books so they are able to achieve results for their sales. We do not just check out and repair the grammar and the spelling of the book. We act at the roots of the problems, working with the writer to improve the characters of the novel, the narrative, the plot. Our final intention is to improve the readers’ experience when reading it.

Anyone who wants to make a career in the field of writing knows how essential books are. A book is the single reason behind most of the viral content on the internet because books are the most used material of learning and teaching. A writer has to make researches and establish an idea about the topic that his story is going to be about and also must make sure that there are readers interested in buying the book. Only when he establishes these can he start writing the final edition. At the Articus, we have experts who work as Developmental Editors to help writers with this stage of the process. With our Developmental Editing Services, we help writers improve their novels and we offer feedback to help the author reach his target public.

3. Key Elements of Developmental Editing

Character is perhaps the most important element to address in a manuscript because the violent action and detective work of a novel’s plot means nothing to the reader if it is not affecting some characters in a real and dynamic way. Individual character development and momentum in tension are key here, but also a web of relationships that reveals each character’s beliefs, emotional/mental state, sociopolitical understanding (through dialogue choices and feedback), and their potential to drive the plot forward when combined with the concepts of cause and effect. The strength of the dialogue, its capacity for minimizing stereotypes and limiting the omni-opinion (which is a narrative voice coming from a character, not the author), is also an important evoker. All of these things also travel full circle and reveal things about the character, so dialogue in conjunction with the character. Dialogue is a target area in which we will focus more on the finished editing, as you can get a quick sense of the whole critique.

Authentic Editing Services’ developmental editing is designed to analyze and critique each of the key components of a completed manuscript, addressing such issues as character development, dialogue, narrative voice, plot, pacing, tone, setting, scene-building, and overall content. Each manuscript assessment also includes line editing as well as sample revision notes tailored to the needs of the specific manuscript. After receiving the assessment, writers will have a full understanding of the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses as well as clear steps toward revising those issues.

4. How Developmental Editing Enhances Writing

Full manuscript reviews can include guidance on tone, voice, structure, formatting, as well as address the dynamics in characters and plots of the writer’s story. A developer will be able to suggest scene changes that keep the story moving forward, so as to keep the reader turning pages. The developer assists in identifying areas where threads of subplots may not weave tightly enough throughout the manuscript and offer guidance on where to add depth. The writer will learn ways to keep the obstacles in the character’s journey from feeling inauthentic, over-the-top, or clichéd. The writer will learn ways to keep the obstacles in the character’s journey from feeling inauthentic, over-the-top, or clichéd. As the manuscript is developed, the focus falls on where the writer’s voice still needs to be strengthened, areas where each character and the progression/relationship to other characters require better exploration/understanding, mise en scene requiring fresh, new clarity and stronger setting details.

Once the developmental stage of an edit is complete, the draft manuscript will be considerably improved over where it began. Developmental editing enhances the writer’s work by exercising where the original draft needs depth, where it requires remapping, and where plot and character arcs will require nurturing and growth. Unlike advice received from those close to a writer, a developer provides unembellished and honest feedback about what works in the draft and more importantly, what does not. The point of developmental editing is not to strip down an author’s voice to the bone, but to feel the passion of the work and to provide the writer with the tools to make a good professional writing out of it.

5. Finding the Right Developmental Editing Service

When you know you need an independent professional to help you make your writing sound more like itself, consider how much you need the story to peak in the face of growing industry challenges for discovery. With the deluge of unedited books, only the story stands defense. But good advice can still make editing more efficient, if the lower cost encourages a greater willingness to rewrite when necessary. To make developmental editing as efficient as possible, consider lowering the barriers of distance between you and your collaborating friends at. Each story challenge is more valuable if peers nearby can help you work through its strengths and weaknesses. The more closely intertwined with the behavior of a final reader that a question is, the more confident you can be in its advice.

The right developmental editor is one of the most important things you need if you are a writer, and it is a very difficult search because of the confusion over editor types. Word choice and line editing should happen after an author finishes rewriting his or her novel, that’s the final quality control step after the structure is ideal. Even more importantly, rules for prose are far more variable than rules for stories. The unhelpful but otherwise correct answer is that you must be true to your own voice. But structure is not identity, and a developmental editor is not directing your word choice. They are helping you make the best work of your original vision.