Developmental editing is the process of reviewing a text in its early drafting stages to identify overarching issues with the text, such as plot structure, characterization, tonal consistency, themes, and voice. This service provides feedback on a project’s strong points, its weaker elements, what the author hopes to accomplish with their work, and suggestions on how to reach that point.
Service details:
- At this time, this service is only being offered for adult or young adult speculative fiction projects (fantasy, science fiction, or horror). Projects may be of any length but must be written text.
- The developmental edit involves reviewing the project to identify structural aspects that the author can strengthen–including plot structure, character arcs, narrative themes, tone, and voice–and providing suggestions to the author for how to move in that direction.
- Developmental edits will be delivered to the author via developmental edit letter, which will highlight the points identified above. In addition to providing suggestions for areas that need work, the developmental letter will also identify which areas of the text are already strong and provide guidance to the author on how to edit to their strengths.
- This stage of editing is recommended for projects that have undergone drafting but not yet reached the copyediting stage. Incomplete drafts of text are accepted for developmental edit, but authors will get the most out of the service if their draft is at least 90% complete.
- For drafts that are not yet 90% complete, pre-developmental consultation may be a more helpful service for the author.
To query for Developmental Editing services, contact Jasmine on their Reedsy profile.
