Developmental Editing
What is a Developmental Edit?
Need help with that complete draft? Dana’s developmental editing service is for writers at all levels of experience: emerging writers, self-published authors or published writers with books published by a traditional publishing house.
Developmental editing, or substantive editing, takes a deep dive into your manuscript. This edit focuses on the ideas, themes, and substance of your story. Conflicts and structure, character arcs, pacing, point of view, and dialogue will all be examined to help a writer develop their project.
Writers will receive detailed notes offering suggestions for ways to improve the content and structure of the story, with recommendations for how to keep things focused.
Your developmental edit will include recommendations for the following:
- Character development
- Dialogue
- Tone or style
- Sentence phrasing
- Pacing
- Setting
- Potential plot holes
How it Works
Once a writer submits their manuscript by email, Dana will add it to her editing schedule. A developmental edit is highly time-consuming work, but Dana commits to completing the edits and sending notes within four weeks. Writers then have the opportunity to email Dana up to five questions within one week of receiving the notes. Dana will promptly email back her considered responses.
Manuscripts must be submitted as a single Word document, in 12-point, Times New Roman, double-spaced.
Fees
Developmental edits are charged at a rate of $0.03 per word.