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Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) ReviewI heard about Scott Norton's Developmental Editing from a classmate--a colleague of the author--in Berkeley's Professional Sequence in Editing. I had never before heard the term "developmental editing," but immediately ordered the book, which I rarely do without the benefit of supporting reviews (since the book was just coming out, there were none at the time). My first response: This is an extraordinary book, and should be added to any short list of essential resources for editing, publishing, and writing.
As defined by Scott Norton, developmental editing is distinct from copyediting and substantive editing. The copyeditor deals with the nuts and bolts of clarity, cohesion, consistency, and correctness (the "4 Cs" according to Amy Einsohn's The Copyeditor's Handbook), while the substantive editor has license to revise at the word, sentence, and paragraph levels.
The developmental editor (DE) operates at the nexus of art, craft, and the market realities of today's hyper-competitive publishing industry. The DE simultaneously serves three constituencies: as first advocate for the reader; as protector of message and voice for the author; as field operative for the publisher, enhancing its reputation while maximizing the book's market prospects. Ideally the DE is brought on board very early on. More often, the DE will be tasked with improving or even rescuing an existing manuscript by applying Scott's developmental blueprint, which also forms the structure of his book: Assuming the author has provided a manuscript with "good bones," the DE first discovers and draws out the most compelling concept. That concept is then narrowed to a sharp thesis, and supporting content is restructured into a rhythmic balance of engaging narrative in service to a cogent argument. Stylistic intervention ensures the author's voice is expressed with clarity and an appropriate tone, while running text is supported with complementary display elements.
In practice, the boundaries between discrete editing tasks are leaky, and don't lend themselves well to tightly prescribed divisions of labor. Still, I like Scott's definition, which he tempers with the acknowledgment that the DE will frequently dip into the inkwells of copyeditor or substantive editor--or even at times the ghostwriter.
The first book-length treatment devoted exclusively to its eponymous subject, Developmental Editing is close to perfect in accomplishing its stated goals: defining the DE's role, prescribing the DE's methodologies, and making a case for the DE's value proposition in publishing's economic equation. Scott accomplishes these goals by spiking the book with the DNA of its own principles, which are prescriptive without being formulaic. Developmental Editing features a clear concept, a sharp thesis, a logical structure, comprehensive yet balanced content, elegant expression, and inventive storytelling (the book's expository framework is punctuated with supporting fictional narratives). And while the book focuses on developing nonfiction books, its methodologies could be applied in some measure to just about any type of writing.
Scott Norton's Developmental Editing should have a broad audience, since it would profit anyone in the publishing industry. For those hoping to enter the industry or move up its food chain, the book is a best-practices manual. Writers can apply its principles to bring sharper focus to the start of any new writing project, or--when a publisher's developmental budget is strained--to self-diagnose problems in an existing manuscript, pushing the work past the tipping point that favors publication.
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