developmental editing

  • When is the best time for a developmental edit?

    When is the best time for a developmental edit?
    When is the best time for a developmental edit?

    So, you’ve been working on your novel or memoir and now you’re wondering when is the best time for a developmental edit.

    Maybe you’re even wondering if you need a developmental edit.

    In fact, that is the best starting point for this topic.

    Let’s check your writing background and circumstances.

    Let’s take a look at your background and current circumstances. Have a look at these questions:

    • Are you a beginner writer working on your first piece of writing?
    • Do you have any experience of writing groups, workshops, or courses?
    • Have you already had feedback on your writing from anyone likely to give you an honest assessment?
    • Are you in a hurry to boost your writing skills as opposed to taking your time to learn your craft?
    • Are you intending to publish your work yourself?
    • Do you hope to make a career or at least a side gig out of writing?

    I could have listed other questions, but I think this is a good starting point.

    Beginner writers don’t necessarily need to get a developmental edit on a rougher draft unless they are determined to shorten their learning time, they have the money, are aiming to publish themselves, and don’t have access to writing groups and other feedback.

    However, I’m not someone who believes people should be wasting their money on unnecessary services or services they are not yet ready for. So, let’s dig deeper.

    Let’s assume you are working on your first book – either a novel or memoir.

    Perhaps you don’t have access to a local writing group and you’re not comfortable engaging with online writing communities.

    Maybe you’ve tried to join some but you’ve just never found the right one.

    Or maybe you’re just shy and hate participating and you prefer to share your work in a more controlled situation.

    Developmental editing and manuscript critiques are still not your first option. There are times when they could be, but a beta read or working with a trustworthy critique partner might be a better cost-effective start.

    However, if you’ve not had much luck with beta readers, you might be reluctant to go down that path again.

    Nevertheless, it could still be worth your while looking for like-minded people online who are interested in your genre, are knowledgeable about it, and reliable enough to give you constructive feedback.

    But, for whatever reason, maybe this has not worked out for you or you just don’t want to go down that route. I get it – writers can be introverts. And like creative people in general, they can be wary of sharing their work.

    When you need feedback

    However, sooner or later, you need feedback. For one thing, bad habits can become engrained and it can become difficult to shake them off. But you also want to know:

    • Is my work good enough?
    • Would anyone want to read it?
    • Might an agent be interested?
    • What can I do better? Where can I improve?

    I have worked with quite a few beginner writers. In those instances, a developmental edit was useful for them because my prices at the time were lower. Some of them said I was cheaper than a writing course.

    But I did look at it to some degree as coaching mixed with developmental editing. The aim was to boost their skillset (and their manuscripts) to a whole new level.

    Opening chapters edit – affordable, fast, detailed

    But you don’t have to go for a full developmental edit to do this. You don’t even need to opt for a manuscript critique, which is cheaper but usually deals with an entire book.

    There are some editors, like myself, who offer opening chapters packages. I offer 10,000 words currently for £120. (Or £180 for 15,000 words.) It’s a flat rate, so you always know what you’re paying.

    There are no extra costs.

    From a price perspective, it’s more affordable, but it also means a newer writer doesn’t feel as overwhelmed by information and track comments right through the entire manuscript. It allows you to learn with less material.

    Some of the things an opening chapters edit will deal with

    • Your opening hook – do you grab the reader (and why it’s important to do so).
    • Do your writing style and tone fit the book’s genre (you’d be surprised what can impact this).
    • Your main character – are they well fleshed out and someone the reader will want to champion for an entire book?
    • What are your main character’s goals, aspirations at the beginning of the story? What do they want?
    • Narrative viewpoint(s) – does your point of view choice work in your narrative’s best interests?
    • Do you have an antagonist or antagonistic force? Who/what is blocking your main character’s goals?
    • If you have an antagonist, are they a fleshed-out credible character or a two-dimensional baddie with no redeeming features?
    • How soon does your plot begin? (Hint: it should start pretty soon.)
    • If you’re writing science fiction, fantasy, or historical fiction, do you have a lot of worldbuilding at the outset? (Watch out – this is a pace killer and could leave your reader bailing out before the story is underway.)
    • Character hierarchy – how many characters do you have, and how many are main characters, secondary, minor, etc? (Remember, the more time you give to minor and secondary characters, the less time you have for the main characters.)
    • The emotional and psychological dominoes – if something good or bad happens to your character, they should not forget about it by the next chapter. This is a generalisation, but if someone has had a bad experience in real life, it reverberates for days, weeks, even years. (This will be the subject of another post.)
    • Location: does your novel have a strong sense of place? (Location is more important to some stories than others.)
    • Do you have either too much or too little dialogue? Do you use dialogue to tell the reader things in a way that’s maybe too obvious and clunky? Is your dialogue the right tone for the scenes?
    • Do all your characters sound alike? (Do any of them have their own particular speech patterns?)
    • Is your dialogue correctly formattted? (I’ve seen some odd stuff in my time!)
    • Pacing – how well does your story move? Too fast? Too slow? The same speed all the way through?
    • How does your paragraph formatting affect your pacing? (This is a topic I’ll address in a future blog post.)
    • Are you using unnecessary transition scenes when you could just opt for a jump cut instead?
    • Your plot structure – even though I only assess the first 10,000 (or 15,000) words, I can also give you an idea of what you should be aiming for later on. Especially if you include a synopsis that helps outline the middle and end of your book.
    • Themes and subjects the opening chapters address.

    These are only a few of the things that might get looked at in an opening chapters edit. It partly depends on the individual manuscript and the author’s strengths and weaknesses.

    Don’t worry, all writers have their weaknesses!

    What you get with an opening chapters edit

    So, how does all this look in terms of what you get for your £120?

    • An editorial letter that usually runs to at least a few thousand words.
    • Track comments in the margins of your manuscript.
    • A reading list that addresses editorial suggestions and helps you develop your skillset further.
    • Where relevant, I might include a book map or visual material but not all manuscripts need this.
    • Email support – I respond to your queries about the edit.
    • A discount on a later manuscript critique or full developmental edit.

    The beauty of an opening chapters edit is that it’s not overwhelming, either from the point of view of time, amount of information to consume, or price.

    This is also a fast service – you can get your feedback within a week.

    You also don’t pay the full amount upfront. If I’m booked up, you can pay in three installments, though the payment period is very short owing to the express delivery time. If I’m not booked up, you can pay half in advance and half on completion.

    When is the best time for a developmental edit? Whenever you’re ready!

    But don’t forget you have writing group and beta reader options first.

    You can also try my FREE sample edit if you want to see what a developmental edit looks like. Feel free to contact me at

    In the meantime, here are testimonials from previous clients:

    If you’re ready for an opening chapters edit, you can find the service page here to find out more:

    Opening Chapters Developmental Edit – IndieCat Editorial

    Or you can contact me at karen@indiecateditorial.com.

  • Character credibility and the domino effect

    Character credibility and the domino effect
    Character credibility and the domino effect

    What is the most common problem I see in manuscripts? Let’s call it character credibility and the domino effect. But before I get to that, let’s check out the more obvious problems I’d be looking at.

    The more obvious developmental concerns

    As a developmental editor who deals with fiction, I obviously look at a novel’s structure, its plots and subplots, and the strength of the characterisation.

    I’ll also look at pacing, point of view, whether the right point of view and tense is being used, whether there are inconsistencies in POV.

    I’ll look at the themes. And whether the plots and character arcs serve the theme.

    I’ll check out the novel’s location. Does it needs to be fleshed out more? Or is there is too much detail slowing down the pace?

    I’ll check dialogue for any problems there.

    I’ll look at the balance of showing versus telling. And I’ll check the beginning to see if it has a good early hook, the middle for standing strong, and the ending for closing in the best place. I’ll also check to see if the ending matches the promise of the beginning.

    In fact, there are all sorts of things that will come up in a developmental edit. Some writers have POV nailed down to the point there isn’t a lot to say about it. They might have as much dialogue as needed, and it’s strong and doesn’t need much attention.

    Different writers have their own strengths and weaknesses. Over time they can become aware of what they need to work on so that by the next novel, they know what to look out for.

    Psychology and the domino effect

    But there are one or two things that come up so often that I thought I’d write a post about them. They’re actually related to one another. I call them ‘the dominoes’ and often ‘the psychological dominoes’. However, it’s not necessarily always an issue of psychology. But psychology is something that I end up commenting on the most in a manuscript’s margins.

    To start with a basic example of the dominoes – imagine your character is shot in the leg. That would be painful. If they’re not used to being shot in the leg, or being attacked at all, there will likely be some lingering trauma for a while. So it wouldn’t make sense for you to have your character walking about a week later without any pain or any memory of what happened.

    Yet this is the kind of thing I do see in manuscripts.

    It’s usually not a gunshot though. It will be something else. It could be a terrible accident that should impact the characters for quite a while and reverberate through the novel until there’s some kind of resolution – even if it’s not the main plot and you don’t spend too much time on it.

    Basically, once you set up that first domino and knock it over, there should be a chain of dominoes going over after it. A chain of consequences.

    How would someone in the real world react?

    This doesn’t mean you have to angst over following through on every single thing that happens to your characters. But it’s certainly worth thinking about how someone in the real world would react to something like that. Would they get over this event immediately? Or would they think about it sometimes in the dead of night? Perhaps they could be frightened it would happen again?

    I often find that characters have suddenly developed amnesia about things that have happened earlier in the book. And it’s a form of amnesia that just wouldn’t happen in the real world.

    Sure, you don’t think about bad things all the time. But there will be little things that sometimes trigger a memory and a physical response to that memory.

    Your characters must be credible

    This is the kind of thing I often address in margins. Because otherwise characters lack credibility. They don’t act like real people. They do what is required in any one scene. But this will undermine their overall believability and even their likeability in the eyes of the reader.

    For example, a character that doesn’t think about a tragic event after it happens and carries on happily could end up looking heartless or even psychopathic.

    While you might indeed want to create an unlikeable character, they still have to be credible. Even unlikeable people will want to avoid putting themselves into dangerous or upsetting situations again. Even unlikeable people can mourn for a loved one.

    The importance of creating engaging characters

    One of the most important goals early on in your novel should be to get the reader to care about their character and want to know what happens to them. At the very least, if the character is Patrick Bateman, the reader should be intrigued by them.

    That’s why digging deeper into character psychology is so important.

    Readers don’t remember every detail of a plot long after they’ve finished the book. But they remember how the book made them feel. They’ll remember whether they fell in love with the characters or strongly identified with any of them. They’ll remember the atmosphere of the book too.

    So, characterisation is really important and that means making your characters as believable as possible.

    An example of the dominoes

    This does not mean loads of reflection or angst, which would block forward momentum of the plot. But it does mean remembering that your character does not have amnesia. There will be times they remember something. You can use memory triggers carefully in the right places.

    Here’s an example: imagine your character goes out one night and is beaten up. They shouldn’t then swan out the door another night as if they don’t recall what happened the first time. Your character should be wary about going out alone. They might even put it off. They might have to overcome their fear. When they do go out, they should be hypervigilant. Obviously it depends on your plot and the character’s situation whether they’re likely to be attacked again. But if they have fears, and you play on it, you can increase the stakes for the character, and the tension for the reader. You can make the reader worry even if nothing happens.

    It’s not about creating false tension, it’s just natural that someone would be worried and you don’t necessarily have to add much to the text to show the inner battle to overcome a fear. It’s not about adding in a chunk of words. You just need to show the consequences of a previous plot event, how it impacts the character, and how the character learns to deal with it over time.

    Otherwise, if they sail out the door with no concerns, you’ve missed a bunch of opportunities to show inner conflict, higher stakes, tension, and so on.

    Use psychological triggers – but don’t overdo it

    If bad things happen to your character, consider what might trigger them into remembering. It could be something that another character says in a conversation that briefly causes them upset or stress. They can overcome it. But if a character’s loved one is murdered, and someone else mentions another murder, the main character cannot help but be triggered into remembering/feeling/reacting etc, complete with physical symptoms, however brief.

    Dealing with the dominoes is not something you have to worry about much in an early draft. You can leave this to the polishing stage. But it’s best to deal with it a bit earlier than late drafts. That’s because if you do introduce triggers, it might mean scene rewrites or some new scenes.

    Most of all, it’s not every single thing that happens to a character that matters. It’s what someone in a particular situation would naturally feel when a possible trigger is present.

    Or when they’re lying in bed at night unable to sleep. This is a time when people in the real world do angst. But I often see characters going to bed, even in the middle of dramatic events. And they seem to fall asleep immediately, when many real people would be tossing and turning!

    Conclusion

    It’s worth paying attention to your own reactions to things – how you’re reminded of events from the past. How other people around you behave.

    Writing a novel doesn’t mean you have to write a psychological manual. But adding in psychological realism can help boost your characters and the inner conflicts to another level. It can also help, where relevant, in raising a scene’s stakes.

    Ultimately you’re making your characters stronger. You’re showing a chain of actions. Character amnesia (which can leave a plot looking episodic and disconnected) is eliminated, and your stakes are raised.

    Looking for feedback on your novel?

    I currently have openings for manuscript critiques, mini opening chapters developmental edits, and full developmental edits. I can also give feedback on novel outlines with a report and margin comments.

    If you have any particular questions, you can contact me at karen@indiecateditorial.com. You can also check out my services page here:

    Developmental Fiction Editing Services – IndieCat Editorial

  • What Ash Ambirge taught me

    What Ash Ambirge taught me

    As a developmental editor of fiction, I often find myself pointing something important out to clients. Novels should not be episodic. The plot should have a structure, with each event like a domino falling over which then hits the next domino.

    This should also happen on a psychological level, which I find particularly gets missed by writers. But that post is for another day.

    The point I wanted to make here is that one thing in fiction impacts another, which impacts another, etc.

    And this is also true in real life.

    You wake up and decide you’re going to tidy a cupboard and, before you know it, you’ve somehow moved on to cleaning the whole room, or trying to track down the stuff that you suddenly realise you’ve misplaced.

    Okay, I hear you saying, what does this have to do with the title of this post?

    And who is Ash Ambirge? (If you don’t know the answer to the second question, shame on you!)

    Look, I’m getting to the point – or points – so bear with me.

    It’s the chain of dominoes. And how it relates to funnels and marketing. And real life.

    How it all started…

    I’m a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association where I get access to a few free webinars.

    When Covid hit last year, business owners like everyone else were panicking. So, there were some useful webinars to help people through the crisis.

    And in one webinar Ash Ambirge and The Middle Finger Project were mentioned in passing.

    I’d never heard of her – or The Middle Finger Project.

    So, shame on me.

    However, being the kind of person who can’t wait to open a new tab on a computer screen, I immediately looked her up.

    She had a new book called The Middle Finger Project. It was part life story and part kick-arse business motivation and inspiration.

    The audio version is actually narrated by Ash Ambirge herself – if you get it, you’ll really get a sense of her personality. I totally recommend it.

    Anyway, I listened to this book in big chunks. Ambirge grew up in a trailer park, the daughter of a disabled single mother on benefits, who then loses her mother as a young adult.

    The story of what happened then is a masterclass in human callousness. I’m talking about the way she heard about her mother’s death. Disgusting.

    But our heroine came through and later, in a business capacity, the middle finger story comes up. I’ll leave you to find that out for yourself.

    But she also told the story of how she found out the guy she was living with had multiple passports and multiple identities.

    And when she confronted him, he got aggressive and threw her out. She had no money or anything, so she had to go back, and then he had his hands around her throat.

    Fortunately, she escaped and spent the night in her car. And that’s when her life changed. When she was sitting in her car, homeless, listening to the radio. An ad came on and said something along the lines of: the new Rihanna CD is available on preorder.

    A truly life-changing phrase.

    Why?

    Because it was at that moment that Ambirge realised you can sell things that don’t exist yet.

    She already had loads of experience in marketing and copywriting. So, she started furiously writing some copy on her laptop and uploaded it to the internet.

    Then the money started rolling in. Her product was legit and she started working on it.

    But she sold it ahead of making it, and the demand proved to be there.

    So, with $300 in her bank account, she flew off to Chile, where rents were cheaper, and set herself up in her new enterprise.

    Now she’s incredibly successful and specialises in motivating those who want to set up in business, or who need to refine their business skills like marketing and copywriting and dealing with clients, etc.

    Where it all led…

    At the end of her book, there’s a link you can follow. It takes you to her site, The Middle Finger Project, and a downloadable book called You Don’t Need a Job, You Need Guts. This is also very inspirational and deals with setting up your own business. It’s particularly strong on building the reader’s confidence and enthusing them to change their life.

    As a consequence of following the link to the downloadable book (which you have to pay for), and signing up to her email list, I then got some witty emails periodically, often on very useful subjects.

    There was also a chance to buy a previous mentorship course she ran – Unfuckwithable Freelancer

    This course consists of a generous series of modules in the Kajabi course format. Everything is laid out in a well-structured way and takes you through the best steps to setting up your business.

    There was a considerable number of modules and because it was no longer live, but a recording of a previous mentorship, it cost $97.

    Definitely one of the best $97s I’ve ever spent. (The other one was an Alex Cattoni copywriting course, also a recording of something previously live.)

    I admit I do love courses. I love learning new things.

     

    48-To-Freedom mentorship…

    But a recorded course doesn’t have the same gung-ho motivation as a live one. So I signed up to the beta version of her live course, 48-to-Freedom, which is about setting up a business website, payment processing, email list, offers, service packages, etc, in two days.

    Now that did push me harder, especially since she totally underestimated how long it would take for people to complete it.

    In fact, it spilled over the weekend and finished on Tuesday. But it was great – she literally showed you what to do on her screen and then you just follow along according to your own business needs.

    Because I’d already done copywriting courses, I largely skipped using her copy templates. But her reasoning for the structure of her copy templates was very insightful.

    I’d studied Alex Cattoni’s sales page course and had already written up most of the content for one of the individual sales pages. But I hadn’t quite finished.

    48-to-Freedom encouraged me to finish and get it uploaded and live. And then do the other two pages.

    Sales funnels and email marketing are a big part of both Ambirge courses.

    Setting up an email list was on my list of things to do. But, with other things on the go, and not being as organised as I should have been, I had yet to sort it out.

    Conquer Your Novel challenge

    Now I have a free email 5-day challenge/course sequence.

    This free course is titled Conquer Your Novel. It addresses issues like your logline, character hierarchy (to prevent chaos ensuing), Mary Sues, plot structure, and more. 

    If you want to check it out, there’s a sign-up form below.

    So, that’s what Ash Ambirge taught me

    But that brings me back to the topic I had in mind when I started this post – funnels, dominoes.

    It started with someone mentioning Ash Ambirge and The Middle Finger Project – and this led me down a rabbit hole.

    I learned lots of new things.  

    However, I needed that kick up the backside to finally sort out my email marketing sequence. 

    Later my intention with my IndieCat newsletters is to talk about common problems I come across in manuscripts.

    I’ll also review useful books for indie and other authors, point to courses you might be interested in taking, discuss side hustles for those of you who are thinking of getting one.

    I’ll also be talking about training as a developmental editor, and the process of working through a manuscript.

     

    Topics I’ll cover in IndieCat emails

    But that brings me back to the dominoes and the funnel.

    If you’re an indie author (or any author), you want to funnel people from social media over to your site.

    And I will be writing another post on why that’s so important.

    If you are selling books, you’re in business. If you’re an indie author, you’re an author-entrepreneur.

    And it’s really worth thinking about yourself that way. Just as freelancers need to think of themselves as business owners.

    Ash Ambirge talks about us being the fiduciaries of our business.

    It’s our duty to look after our businesses and act in their best interests.

    It’s partly about separating ourselves from the business. If we think about the business – my editing business or your writing career – as a separate entity that we have a duty of care over, then we make better decisions.

    And marketing funnels are part of that decision! Marketing funnels that get people from A to Z.

    Which in your case might be getting people to buy your books.

    Or, if you’re an editor, getting people to buy your services.

    But first, you have to let potential readers or clients know that you understand their needs. Not to mention, why they should choose you (or your book) over someone else.

  • My gripe with some developmental editors

    My gripe with some developmental editors.
    Developmental editors need training.

    Here’s my gripe with some of my fellow developmental editors. Before I went anywhere near my first client, I made sure I had plenty of training.

    And that training was on the back of decades of giving feedback to fiction writers in writing groups. Plus reviewing for a popular Scottish website.

    So, when I encounter editors who offer this service without training, I get pretty pissed. Because this is not some glorified beta read.

    Just because you have opinions about fiction doesn’t mean you’re qualified to charge money for a critique. Copyediting fiction doesn’t make you automatically qualified to developmentally edit a novel. If you expect clients to pay you for these services, the least you can do is make sure you’ve actually studied and your work is vetted by an expert.

    Your client is not just paying for the editing you’re doing, they’re also paying for your expertise, which in part comes from your training. Training you should have invested in.

    But I get the distinct impression some people are downloading manuscript critique templates and reading a book or two. Then, off they go.

    You don’t know what you don’t know

    I cannot imagine having this level of entitlement. The problem with learning a new subject is you don’t know how much you don’t know. Initially you might feel you’re learning a lot. Then there comes the point where the horizons of your new subject shoot out into the distance and you suddenly realise how much more you have to learn.

    It’s a little lesson in humility. But if you’re too dumb to study in the first place, you might not get that lesson. At least, not until a more experienced client slaps you in the face with your own failings.

    Fledgling proofreaders are warned to make sure they’re properly trained (at least in the UK). Yet the same concern for standards is completely absent for developmental editing. Which is considerably more expensive than proofreading.

    Recommended training courses

    Here are some recommended developmental editing courses:

    The three beginner, intermediate and advanced courses in full developmental editing formerly available from the Editorial Freelancers Association and now available from the Club Ed site. The tutor is Jennifer Lawler. The great thing about Jennifer’s advanced course is you get to do a full edit of a novel with track commenting which she reviews. She also offers more courses through her site, Club Ed.

    The Introduction to Developmental Editing at the Author-Editor Clinic focuses more on manuscript critiques. The tutor, Barbara Sjoholm, takes you through the different elements of a critique letter. I really enjoyed this course. I think I was one of only about two students in that particular round of the course who opted to do the harder final assessment – a full manuscript critique of the novel I’d used for the course. There was an easier assignment, but I didn’t pay $399 or whatever not to have my work fully checked.

    Liminal Pages offers two courses in developmental editing – Theory and Practical. The tutor is Sophie Playle and this course, unlike the others, is in the UK.

    There’s also a course on book mapping from the Editorial Freelancers Association. This involves using Excel spreadsheets to analyse books scene by scene. It allows for detailed digging into a manuscript.

    There are other courses too, but these are the ones I’m most familiar with. They’re also the best for anyone thinking of getting into this field and authors should look for editors who’ve invested in courses like these.

    At some point in the near future I will review these courses for anyone who might be interesting in taking them. I enjoyed all of them and would recommend them to others.