By Hannah de Keijzer

Having your manuscript edited is a chance to clarify your ideas, develop your writing craft, and make your book the very best it can be. Here are tips and prompts to help you take full advantage of this opportunity.

Your manuscript can go through several kinds of editing as it progresses from idea to publication:

• developmental/substantive editing for structure and argument;
• line editing for voice, clarity, and flow; copyediting for consistency and correctness; and
• proofreading for that final cleanup of lingering errors.

Not all publishers offer editorial support at every stage.

So it’s important to talk with yours about what they will be doing for you, and decide whether you’ll invest in freelance support to fill in the gaps. Whether you’re looking to maximize the value of working with an in-house editor or hiring directly, communication is the foundation to getting what you need from the author-editor relationship.

The prompts here focus on developmental and line editing because both are invitations for further revision (whereas copyediting and proofreading happen after you consider the manuscript “done”). You can also use them as a checklist during your own revision process. They’ll give you insight into your own writing and strengthen your manuscript before and after working with an editor.

Getting the Most Out of a Developmental Edit

The developmental editor holds your goals and intentions for the book in one hand, your manuscript in the other, and brings them up together in front of the light. Then they do the careful, clear-eyed work of showing you how to align the two. They are responding to your vision for what this book can be. But they’re also on the hook for telling you whether or not you’re achieving that vision, or if that vision sells your book short. They may even propose a different vision for the text—one they think will be more engaging for your readers or a stronger offering in the field.

To do this work well, developmental editors first need to understand your vision. The conversation starters below will help you both come to that understanding together.

Questions to Discuss with Your Developmental Editor

To help your editor understand your goals and intentions—and therefore let you get the most out of a developmental edit—I suggest you and your editor talk through questions like these.

• Who is your intended audience, and how much do they know about your subject? What are they interested in learning?
• Why might they be picking your book up in the first place?
• What do you want people to take away from your book? What do you want them to know or be able to do differently when they’re done reading?
• Why are you writing it? Why are you the right person to write it?
• Are you writing to the conventions of a particular genre or field, or deliberately trying to stretch some boundaries or conventions?
• What do you think are the current strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript?

The developmental editor is also a dynamic, empathetic bridge between you and your reader. In that role, they’re considering as they work:

• Is the book in the best order and arrangement to get your ideas across clearly?
• Does the book say what you want it to say? Will the reader take away what you want them to?
• What’s special and working well about your book, and how can the editor help you bring more of that forward?
• Do the structure and level of the writing match what your intended audience understands and is interested in?
• Where are you giving the reader everything they need, and where are you assuming too much?
• Are the sections of your manuscript weighted well in relation to each other? Or is one bloated with extra examples, say, or one lacking the argumentary heft of the others?
• Are there holes in your argument or story? Sections of less energy where your reader could get confused or bored and put down the book?
• Are you unintentionally trying to cram more than one book in here? If so, how can you pull them apart, which one will you choose to write first, and what’s needed to fill it out?

Getting the Most Out of a Line Edit

You cultivate a particular style as a writer-reviser. A line editor’s job is to submerge themselves halfway in that style so their edits sound and feel like you, not them. To do it well, the editor should know what’s important to you about your own writing. You can help your editor—and get the most out of any line edit—by chatting in detail about style, voice, and goals before you begin.

Questions to Discuss with Your Line Editor

Here’s a list of questions to guide your conversation with your line editor. Some of these questions are relevant to copyediting, too (and you’ll notice some partial overlap with developmental questions). Having this conversation makes it more likely you’ll get back a manuscript that sounds and feels true to you. It’ll also minimize the number of times your editor has to pester to you with questions in the middle of the process.

• Do you have any strong habits or preferences on style, including tone, rhythm, word choice, and punctuation? Which of these do you think are useful, and which would you like your editor’s help finding alternatives for?
• What feelings or visceral responses are you trying to evoke, if any?
• Have you varied sentence length and word choice where appropriate to keep reader attention sharp?
• Who is your intended audience? Are you speaking to them at a level they can understand, or are you overwhelming them with jargon or talking down to them?
• Are you aiming to write within certain conventions of a genre or field, or do you want to purposefully break them? For example, you may want to write in a straightforward and approachable way even though most texts in your field are dense.

Think also about whether you’d like your editor to suggest changes and leave every revision up to you to execute, or whether you’d prefer your editor to directly make many of the changes and explain their choices for you to review. Most editors default to somewhere in the middle, so talk with your editor to agree on an approach.

Let the Edits Marinate

Hopefully you’ve been able to build rapport with your in-house editor or to hire freelancers whom you like and trust to do well by you and your work. Even then, having your manuscript edited is a vulnerable process. As hard as it may be not to prickle when someone exposes the innards of your work through editing, try to remember that your editor is suggesting those changes in service of you, your reader, and your best possible book.
If you feel defensive, give yourself a while to cool down and become less tender so you can consider the edits with a curious mind. It can help to let everything marinate for a few days before digging into revisions—unless you’re set aflame with insight and enthusiasm, in which case crack your knuckles and go!

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Hannah de Keijzer is a book coach, writing catalyst, and editor who helps nonfiction authors write compelling books they’re wildly proud of—without grinding themselves to a pulp along the way. This article is adapted from her book How to Enjoy Being Edited: A Practical Guide for Nonfiction Authors, a concise guide to getting the most out of the editorial experience. Connect with Hannah at https://hannahdk.com.