Developmental Editing

In simple terms, a developmental editor will help you make your story engaging and effective. This involves an in-depth analysis of everything big-picture: plot, character arcs, themes, worldbuilding, pacing, and more.

Ideally, this type of editing should be done early in the manuscript’s development. Since the story will likely undergo major changes to chapters and scenes, it’s not recommended to worry about editing sentence-level things like grammar and punctuation (yet).


More specifically, I will:

  • Analyze the plot and provide feedback on elements like pacing, consistency, and clarity.

  • Analyze character arcs and provide feedback on how to make them more engaging and fulfilling.

  • Analyze the story’s worldbuilding and point out inconsistencies or weak points.

  • Offer comments on the story’s intended themes, and whether they are effectively conveyed.

  • Analyze each scene and chapter, and comment on whether they are engaging, well paced, and important to the overarching story.

  • Point out confusing story elements.

  • Point out unnecessary elements, like filler scenes or needless exposition.

  • Answer the oldest question in humanity’s history: is the story actually fun to read?
Quickly! Slice that exposition in half before it puts someone down (to sleep)!


Turnaround times and other details

  • All the work is done on MS Word or PDF.

  • You will receive two documents:

    The first will be the full manuscript with added comments. These will range from small things, like reactions to specific moments, to substantial pieces of feedback related to entire scenes or chapters.

    The second will contain more general comments on the story as a whole. There, I will discuss things like the overall plot, themes, and worldbuilding.

  • I won’t share your work anywhere. Still, upon request, we can sign an NDA for your peace of mind.

  • This service includes several revisions of the entire manuscript.

  • Turnaround times will vary depending on the length of the text, but for reference, a 100,000-word manuscript will take me 4-5 weeks.

Here we’ll also fight the story’s predictability, because remember…predictability leads to boredom, boredom leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, and suffering leads to one-star reviews on Amazon.

Interested? Book a free pre-edit talk and let’s figure out the best for your story.

Contact me!

Not what you’re looking for? Check my other services.