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How to Create Defensible Edits

As a developmental editor, you need to know how to create defensible edits of a manuscript to help authors put out their best work.

Tips for How to Create Defensible Edits

When you’re doing a developmental edit—looking at the big-picture overview of a novel—you’ll generally be expected to provide two main services:

  1. editing the manuscript itself, including comments (queries) that help guide the author’s revision
  2. providing an editorial revision letter to guide the author. The letter highlights your main concerns with the manuscript and advises the author of various ways to fix these problems.

The editing on the manuscript itself will show the author exactly where the problem areas are. Note that the line editing you do as a developmental editor may address awkward sentences or obvious grammatical errors just as a copy editor would do, but do not confuse your job with copyediting.

That is, your main concern is always the big picture. You don’t need to spend half an hour deciding whether “magenta” is really the best word to describe that shade of purple. Leave that decision up to the copy editor. (For more: Line Editing During a Developmental Edit)

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If, on the other hand, you read in one sentence, “Joe disliked bananas,” and a paragraph later read, “Joe ate the banana split with relish,” flagging the inconsistency would be your job because effective characterization is the purview of the dev editor.

Overall, you’ll be looking for consistency of plot, clear and believable characterization, appropriate world-building, and a compelling storyline (among other things). When the novel wavers from these standards, it’s your role to point this out and suggest possible ways to solve the problem.

The most important rule for editors: Don’t add in errors. A secondary but still crucial rule is to ensure that any editorial suggestions you make are clear, understandable, and defensible.

Don’t add in errors may sound simple to avoid, but I would say at least twenty-five percent of the full manuscript edits I see include editorial errors. That is, the editor made a change to the manuscript that created an error. Sometimes, the editor has added a typo. Sometimes the editor has changed correct facts (“She was born in the Welsh marches”) to incorrect facts (“She was born in the Welsh marshes”)—a march is a borderland, not a wetland. Sometimes the editor has changed correct grammar (“He was lying in wait”) to incorrect grammar (“He was laying in wait”).

It is one thing to overlook a problem in a manuscript. It’s another thing to create a problem in a manuscript. It’s unacceptable, which is why every edit you make must be defensible.

What does defensible mean?

In the context of developmental editing, it means that you have a good reason (other than personal opinion) for suggesting an edit. In other words, you’re not telling an author that she should change the name of her main character to Brutus because you don’t like the name Joe. No one cares that you don’t like the name Joe.

It’s common for new DEs to suggest edits based on what they would have written if they had written the book. That’s not defensible. No one cares that you would have made that character a race-car driver. What matters is whether the book works as the author intends.

You must have a specific and logical argument for why an edit is needed. “Joe’s motivation isn’t believable” is an example of a defensible argument. If the reader doesn’t buy a character’s motivation, then the novel doesn’t work.

Here’s another defensible edit: “In Chapter One, Mary remarks that she hates wearing red but in Chapter Three she’s wearing a red shirt with no explanation. Please reconcile.” Inconsistencies abound in book-length fiction and your job is to keep track well enough to spot them when they occur.


Tips for Editors & Writers

  • The Editorial Blooper Reel

    Back when I edited a custom magazine, I assigned and edited a package about an upcoming event (similar to a business conference) which included profiles of some of the attendees and speakers, a how-to-get ready checklist, a travel piece on side trips to take at the location, a celebration of highlights of the event over…

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  • Using information products to boost your bottom line

    People like to pretend that you can write a book and make passive income from it.  You can’t.  If you write a book and stick it up on Amazon and never do anything to promote or market it, you’re not going to sell any copies. Okay, you might sell three or four to people who…

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  • The Fine Art of Copyediting Fiction

    When copyediting fiction, it’s common to run up against issues that pit author preference against standard editing approaches. For example, in a story I wrote some years ago, the main character’s neighbor is referred to as “3-B” as that is her apartment number and the MC doesn’t know her name. Fine. She can be referred…

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