Types of Editing: An Inside Look at What Editors Do

The main difference between an editorial assessment and a developmental edit is that no in-line edits are done in an editorial assessment—it's solely commentary in the margins.

I basically use the Reedsy definitions for these services:

Editorial Assessment. This is a popular and cost-effective first step for authors, ideal for those at an early stage of their rewrites. Editors offering an editorial assessment will:

1. Read and analyze your manuscript;
2. Provide an evaluation in the format of a report and/or margin comments in the manuscript itself, covering all aspects of the story, structure, and commercial viability;
3. Offer suggestions to guide your rewrites.
4. NOTE: No in-line edits are included in this service.

Developmental Editing. A nose-to-tail structural edit of your manuscript for authors who have taken their book as far as they can by themselves.

1. Detailed recommendations to improve “big picture” concerns like characterization, plot, pacing, setting, etc.;
2. Specific guidance on elements of writing craft;
3. In-line suggestions and edits in the manuscript.

I'm coming at this question as a non-fiction editor. An Editorial Assessment is, in a way, a partial Developmental Edit, suitable if your manuscript is still pretty rough and likely in need of a restructure. The Assessment delivers feedback as a report, without inline comments. As you might imagine, this necessarily means that we keep things pretty high-level and don't get into the weeds. It will look at your manuscript in terms of the big picture and will be asking, what broad changes can be made to enhance the clarity and appeal of the text?

For non-fiction editing, an Editorial Assessment will usually mean providing feedback on:

1. The structure and organization of the text (e.g. it doesn't make sense to talk about X before Y - swap these around).
2. Points of confusion (e.g. you're not introducing your chapters or sections effectively; let's make it clear to readers what the goal is here, and why we're learning about this).
3. How to make the learning journey clearer and smoother for the reader (e.g., add more sections with informative headings to break up your text into obvious themes; or perhaps your manuscript currently lacks any practical scenarios that would make the learning more tangible and concrete for the reader - let's add some).

Notice that these are all general improvements, rather than pointing at a specific paragraph and suggesting a specific fix. An Editorial Assessment would provide suggestions on how to resolve the issues highlighted, but again at a general level.

A Developmental Edit does all of the above, while also providing more fine-grain comments in the text (e.g. this specific paragraph is confusing - here's how we might fix it), and generally more author-editor interaction. The extra specificity allows for a lot more depth to the edit in terms of solving particular pain points in the text.

A Developmental Edit will also focus more on pedagogical enhancement, e.g. suggesting a scenario to reinforce a particular point, or highlighting that a particular spot in the manuscript would be a great place for a workflow diagram. A Dev Edit also usually involves more than one iteration; for my edits, I always check the revisions made to see whether my comments were addressed, and provide some extra feedback for final refinements before calling the project complete.

In short:

1. An Editorial Assessment looks at the big picture and can provide high-level advice that is particularly helpful for authors who are either on a tight budget or have a rough manuscript they're unsure how to take forward.
2. A Developmental Edit is more in-depth, providing high-level advice to enhance a text, but then going further, helping authors to resolve specific pain points, improve their pedagogical approach, and make the overall learning journey easier for the target reader.

I define a developmental edit as a comprehensive review of a book’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for revision. With your manuscript, I’d read it and consider its pacing, plot, character development, voice, and other building blocks of storytelling. After reading the draft, I’d deliver to you a detailed editorial letter (no shorter than 3,000 words). The other "deliverable" from this service would be a detailed annotation of the manuscript. Using Track Changes, I would point out in-text examples of what's working, what's not, and potential paths forward as you continue shaping the manuscript. I find that this tool can be especially helpful for authors who want specific examples identified for them throughout the text. My expectation is that these two deliverables can help you improve the current manuscript while also adding to your knowledge base long-term. Hopefully, they’ll be resources you can revisit again and again.

A nose-to-tail structural edit of your manuscript for authors who have taken their book as far as they can by themselves.

1. Detailed recommendations to improve “big picture” concerns like characterization, plot, pacing, setting, etc.;
2. Specific guidance on elements of writing craft;
3. In-line suggestions and edits in the manuscript.

A developmental edit includes an analysis of what is working and what still needs to be improved regarding big-picture issues like pacing, plot, clarity, setting, telling vs. showing, character development, etc. I provide suggestions for improvement directly on the manuscript using track changes in Word. I also include pages of editorial notes regarding what still needs to be improved and I provide suggestions on how to improve these issues. I am also always available for Zoom chats before, during, and after any edits are provided. And clients may contact me at any point in the process regarding any questions or concerns, even after the collaboration has officially ended.

My developmental edits include two parts: line notes and a letter.

The line notes point out any strengths or issues that arise as I read. For full-length books, generally, these line notes will even out to about 1-2 per page, though some pages may have none, and some pages may have many, as needed. For shorter pieces and picture books, I typically include many more line notes per page, depending on what is needed. When I notice a repeated problem, I discuss it in my overall letter rather than commenting on every instance. These line notes are meant to educate authors and help them become better writers, not "fix every error" as a copy edit would.

For full-length books, for the letter, I normally include:

1. An introduction discussing the book's high-level strengths and opportunities for improvement.
2. Sections discussing structure/plot, character, setting/worldbuilding, romance if applicable, target market (age category, genre, and comp titles), title, and style.
3. A conclusion with key next steps to focus on for the book.

These letters are lengthy, generally in the ballpark of 3,000 words (10-ish pages), and come with a table of contents.

My letters for shorter pieces and picture books are shorter and less formal, though they include roughly the same sections.

My developmental edits also include back and forth via message for 6 months after the project is complete. I love to brainstorm and talk through issues!

I have worked with many indie authors in the past and it really depends on their level of knowledge about the editing process. But typically I would explain in detail what developmental editing, copyediting, proofreading, or an editorial assessment entails. I encourage any author to contact me with questions or comments. I also give advice on how many rounds of editing I think will be necessary to bring the manuscript up to publishing standards so that it can either be self-published or sent to agents and publishers.

Some writers find it useful to arrange a call either before or after the first round of editing. Others like to get some publishing advice or help with the query letter after the editing process is complete.

I really just try to adapt the whole process as much as possible to their personal situation (mostly budget and writing time) without compromising the quality of the result.

Great question! I'll refer to the guidance I've given a few recent first-time indie authors.

My super objective in guidance for first-time authors is to convey broad revision tools--the big picture of story construction--and to illuminate practical scene work techniques. On the macro level, I focus on structure and character arcs, and on the granular level, I focus on scene design and narrative point of view.

By structure, I mean not just story plot but story parts and how they progress. To do this, I encourage various outlines before rewriting. Here are two outline examples:

1. A quadrant breakdown that spells out the progressive phases of the story problem.
2. A chart that follows the lead character's pursuit of an initial goal to the realization of her ultimate need.

So in the structure outline that I recommend, I might ask the author to break the larger story problem into four pieces, each one mounting from its emergence in the first quarter (1Q) to a much bigger problem in the fourth (4Q). Charting a worsening problem this way can help the author pin down key story beats or turning points. Same with the character's story goal: If the author can distinguish between what the protagonist is pursing in 1Q and later in 3Q, a natural arc forms, and it's easier to identify what revelations need to happen, and where.

For guidance on scene design, I refer to my in-line feedback on the ms and point the author to four concepts:

1. Intention: the focal character's goal in that scene, and how it is projected, ideally through action, early on.
2. Complication: carefully chosen moments where a particular pursuit might best be interrupted by an obstacle.
3. Decision: where desire (intention) meets obstacle (complication); often the key to redesigning the whole scene.
4. Expectation-Reversal: the outcome of the desire-obstacle-decision sequence that is usually an action and, ideally, helps the author know how to rewrite the scene in a way that sets up an expectation for a different outcome, leading to a sense of reversal or surprise when the intended outcome arrives.

For narrative point of view, lately I've been leaning into the language of the fictional camera, as opposed to a film or "objective" camera. My guidance for first-time authors is scene-specific and goes like this:

1. The lead has a camera on her shoulder that is wired to her brain; she is the only focal character for this scene.
2. This camera moves with the lead's head and sees (with the reader) only what she sees.
3. The camera details external events but zooms in at key moments to relate the lead's internal sensory reactions and thoughts. (I show this process with examples.)
4. The goal of external-internal camera zooming is to connect the reader to the lead by using the lead as a visual, mental, and emotional guide.

My aim in all my guidance is to get authors thinking about the experience they want to create for the reader in the next draft--and to keep my ideas practical and actionable.

This is a big question. I like to advise all potential clients about the whole editing process in a simple, non-intimidating, and open way because it's important that authors understand how an editor can help them improve their manuscripts. So, first, I try to get a good idea of the level of work each manuscript will need.

First-time authors often need the gamut of editorial input, beginning with an editorial assessment or a story critique. This will give authors a bird's-eye view of their story to see if it is structurally and narratively sound. I want to make sure authors are happy with their plotting, their character development, and story arcs before we get into the nitty-gritty of craft and grammar, etc.

Once that big-picture stuff is out of the way, I take a look at the prose from a mechanical perspective and make sure their sentences--the storyTELLING itself--is as effective as it can be. This includes line editing, which is a paragraph- and sentence-level tune-up to make the action, the dialogue, and the scene-craft proceed and flow logically and with the maximum emotional payoff (so that things like suspense, surprise, reveals, etc. are all addressed optimally). Authors are usually really pleased when they realize how much an editor can help here.

Finally, we get to the polishing phase of the draft, which includes copyediting (looking for punctuation and grammar goofs) and proofreading (looking for typos and last-minute copy edits). This is when the author and editor have both gone over the whole draft and gotten it into solid narrative shape.

First-time author should never fear or be intimidated by the editing process if the editor is transparent in demystifying the whole process, bringing the writer into the process so that he/she doesn't feel like they've lost ownership of their story. All that said, editing is as important a part of the publishing path as the writing itself, and it can be as creatively stimulating as the writing that first draft.

Being a copy editor is all about catching those sneaky typos, fixing up clunky sentences, and making sure the tone stays just right so readers stay hooked and never feel lost or confused.

But it goes way beyond just being the “grammar police” or nitpicking every last comma (though yeah, I’ll totally keep an eye on those). My focus is on flow, rhythm, and making sure your message doesn’t just get across—it leaves an impact. If something feels off, I’ll tweak it back into shape, but without stripping away your voice or changing your style.

At the end of the day, it’s your story—I’m just here to make sure it shines as brightly as it deserves, keeps readers engaged, and lands exactly the way you want. My job is to let your words do the talking, but in their very best form.

I use the Reedsy definition of this role:

A “fine-tuning” of your manuscript. This includes:

1. Direct edits to the manuscript on a sentence level;
2. A focus on prose (eliminating repetition, purple prose, awkward dialogue, etc.);
3. Corrections for inconsistencies.

I also generally can't help myself and wind up doing proofreading, as well—for which I also use the Reedsy definition:

The final stage of the editorial process. As standard, a proofreader will:

1. Sweep the manuscript to catch remaining spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes;
2. Make suggestions based on the publisher’s chosen style guide to guarantee a consistent reading experience.

I advocate for the reader. I read your words with fresh eyes, keeping in mind how readers will probably receive the ideas. Sometimes I will change your words so the message is consistent and clear; sometimes I will ask you about your intention for a sentence; sometimes I will suggest a new way of saying something since we editors are up-to-date with the latest thinking, terminology and industry conventions.

Alongside all this, I will make proofreading changes according to your preferred style (US or UK English; spelling choices like organise or organize; 'single' or "double" quote marks) – together we will construct your personalised 'Style sheet' for you to hand over to your proofreader, then you can reuse and adapt it for all your books.

A skilled editor provides you with a trustworthy perspective and enhances your unique voice by refining the elements that might detract from its clarity and power. They are an invisible partner who helps you achieve your optimal writing goals.

Copy-editing involves mostly technical refinements relating to grammar, punctuation, minor clarity issues, and technical consistency. Line editing goes a little further, taking a deep look at the line and paragraph level regarding tone, flow, structure and meaning of the language. The editor makes suggestions or asks questions that bring the writing to its cleanest, clearest form, and addresses issues such as awkward sentence construction, wordiness, vagueness, jargon, crutch words, repetition and redundancies, minor fact checking, and consistency of style.

I like the analogy of a singer or musician recording their music. They may have extraordinary talent, skill, and heart, but they still need a sound engineer to make sure the recording is clear and beautiful and brings out their voice or composition to its fullest potential.

A copyeditor is there to look at the style and tone of the work. They're traditionally wrestling with a house style guide or an academic style guide so the writer's work fits the industry standard. This is the person who polishes the writer's work – using industry knowledge writer's can't be expected to have – and gets it ready to be turned into a book. When the copyeditor's focus is on the whole of the manuscript (to note the jokes you made before, the colour of the character's eyes, and the weather outside in chapter three) it's not always possible to focus on commas too.

Proofreading should be the very final safety net, there to catch the last typos and act as a different set of eyes. They're able to concentrate on the very final detail of the text because the copyeditor resolved the vast majority of the glaring issues.

The most important thing, though, is that the proofreader should be reading the proofs. They're the person who checks the book professionally just before it goes to print, and checking for all the potential problems that were created when your manuscript went from a Word document to a PDF. When you remove the proofreader from the process, you risk all kinds of gremlins impacting the final version of your book and the impression it makes.

A copy-editor often has to pay a lot of attention to wider issues, and hence may miss some small proofreading errors or inconsistencies. Also, in the publishing context, when a book has been typeset, the typesetting process often introduces errors into a book that weren't there before

It doesn’t mean the copy editor has failed if a proofreader is needed. Even the best copy editors aren’t perfect—no one can catch every single error. The industry standard for copy editing is a 90-95% catch rate, which is impressive, but it still leaves room for minor typos or formatting issues to slip through. That’s why a final proofread is essential; it provides a fresh set of eyes to catch anything that might’ve been missed and ensures the formatting and presentation are clean and consistent for a polished, professional result.

The distinctions between copyediting and proofreading can grow fuzzy at times, but essentially, copyediting happens before design and proofreading, after. Even if your copy editor were perfect, turning an error-free manuscript into a book is going to introduce new elements that need to be checked. Are the margins consistent? Are all the headers the right level? Did a quotation mark of the wrong font sneak in? Are the page numbers on the correct side of the page? Even if they never actually speak with one another, the copyeditor, designer and proofreader engage in a sort of conversation to ensure the author's intentions get onto the page.

Personally, I find it hard to only do a copy edit or a proofread; I can't help but do both. But some people can switch off either service and just concentrate on one. So, no, if a copy editor has only done their job and not the job of the proofreader, that's completely acceptable. The copy editor is more focused on line edits, internal consistency, awkward dialogue, etc., whereas a proofreader will be looking for final corrections before typesetting, like typos, punctuation issues, formatting concerns, and the like.

My style sheet includes quite a few different elements, including:

1. Spelling preferences for words that have multiple options
2. Character names and profiles, noting everything we learn about that character over the course of the story and what page we learn it on
3. Place names, with descriptions
4. World-specific terms, as well as their meanings
5. A brief summary of every chapter and scene throughout your story
6. Grammatical and citation rules that are followed
7. Lists of important information that I might need to keep track of, like all the countries mentioned, or each member of the king's council, or what the prophecy says, word for word

My style sheet is meant to help me take notes during the process of editing, but also helps you, the author, learn best practices, understand what I've changed, and keep things streamlined, particularly across multiple books. If I work with you on a second book, then, it shifts into more of a series bible, where all information is compiled across all books to ensure total consistency.

Let's face it: some book categories are positively anal. (I'm looking at you, Children's Picture Books.)

But even for those, there are decades of practicality that underlie the surface "rules."

For example: most beginning picture book writers don't understand how to write for artists, so except for including bland imagery that can't be sussed from the text, they should leave it alone.

Also in picture books, writers shouldn't try to find artists; that's the purview of the editor, who has a broader commercial and aesthetic range. If the writer understands that the editor is the fulcrum of the process, then it's easier to understand why she/he should be careful not to overstep.

For novelists, there are some standards that need to be adhered to, and some really good reasons for it. If you search online, you'll see numerous different cover sheet formats, and that can be confusing, until you realize that most of them contain the same information; then you can choose what you prefer. (I like the Reedsy manuscript format, which seems to cover most of them.)

But then we get to the formatting that needs to be strictly adhered to: 12 pt. New Times Roman, double-spaced.

What's that about?

Well, here's the thing: if you put yourself in the editor's position, how would you like to read a hundred different manuscripts with a hundred different fonts at a hundred different sizes that can have any space between lines?

The answer is: you wouldn't. The important thing about identical formatting is that it allows the work to stand out and speak for itself. Also, there's a practical tradition of having double-spacing between lines to leave room for editorial notes.

Onto comics and graphic novels.

There's an industry truism about comics: there's no one way to write a comic; there's only the finished result.

So here's what's important: clarity and consistency. I can't tell you how hard it is to accomplish those simple three words.

If a script is clear in it's direction to the artist (not complicated; clear) and consistent in its use and execution, then it will be well-written. The goal here is to write a script that will be perceived the way it is intended to be perceived, not just by the artist, but also by the editor and the comics reader. That is so much harder than it sounds.

For writers who clearly haven't yet learned to "think comics," I offer a tried and true style sheet that makes the work ten times easier than trying to write comics like movies, which is what I mostly see.

Ultimately, for any style sheet format, if you don't follow formatting "rules," then it means you haven't done your homework, and that's not a great first impression.

I provide your personalised Style sheet with my copyedit. That means, I produce a list of your style choices that we will agree together: US, Australian or UK spelling and other style options.

For example: -ise or -ize (organise / organize); -ed or -t (learned / learnt), indented paragraphs or not, "double" curly quotation marks or 'single' straight ones, and hyphen choices (wellbeing / well-being)

It's a negotiation we agree on together based on your preferences and my knowledge of international readers and the editing conventions that should future-proof your writing.

My answer mostly pertains to literary work, both fiction and nonfiction. The style sheet is a crucial tool for ensuring consistency but also preserving a writer's voice and style. There are general things that should always be present in a style sheet, such as regional spelling, any rules of a specific publisher or journal the writer is submitting to, the style guide and dictionary consulted, Oxford comma, commas after introductory clauses, spelling of character names or treatment of proper nouns (World War II or Second World War, for example), etc. But I would argue a good style sheet also takes into account a writer's voice and style, especially for literary texts. Perhaps a large part of the texture of a writer's voice is through the occasional use of sentence fragments. Maybe there exists an intentional choice to avoid semi-colons, preferring comma splices for the casual way they encourage a breath. These are discussions an editor should have with a writer; in that sense, some of the style sheet can be co-created between writer and editor.

Absolutely not! Proofreading tools like Grammarly are handy for quick checks, but they’re no substitute for a human proofreader or editor.

Tools like Grammarly can catch typos and basic grammar mistakes and even suggest some rewording. But at the end of the day, they’re just following rules and algorithms. They don’t understand your writing like a human does, and they may not break a rule if you want it to be broken.

A human proofreader gets the context, tone, and the subtleties in your words. They know when a sentence needs to break a rule for impact and when your unique style is intentional. Plus, humans spot the tricky stuff—like homonyms (think “your” vs. “you’re”), awkward phrasing, and shifts in voice or consistency. And let’s be honest, Grammarly might give you suggestions, but sometimes it makes things sound robotic or just… off.

Bottom line? Use the tools—they’re helpful! But for that final layer of polish, flow, and true understanding, a human touch makes all the difference.

Regarding Grammarly and AI generally, I was recently in contact with someone doing a PhD on AI's potential affect on book editing. So naturally I asked her if AI will run me out of business.

Her response was: "I think for now AI will definitely not run you out of business. You have a wealth of knowledge and experience that can’t be trained by a data set."

The same goes for proofreading. There's no substitute for an experienced professional when it comes to complex and subjective things like proofreading and editing

Definitely not! Grammarly is useful for certain types of copywriting. It has its benefits in terms of tightening up sentences and keeping your punctuation relatively consistent. It's great if you're used to writing in UK English but you want your manuscript to be in US English. But even the pro version misses a lot if your goal is a finished, polished manuscript to make up the inside pages of your book.

My other bugbear is that Grammarly suggestions take all the personality out of your writing! It's very easy to overuse it and end up with a piece of text that sounds like something anyone could have written. For something that's as big of a milestone as your book, it's much more rewarding to work with a human who can discuss your choices and show you how to implement them correctly, rather than a machine that irons them out because it thinks it knows best.

Grammar services are only as smart/accurate as their programmers. In the end, I believe you need a trained/experienced, human professional to pick up on the nuances of your story—the different ways your characters speak, if you experiment with different POVs, tense shifting, etc. Things like this generally won't be picked up by AI, and you'll wind up with a much more flattened overall feel than you would if you had a living, breathing professional working with you on your story.

A human understanding of language is essential. AI and digital tools are amazing and useful, but language is human communication in all its richness. We must make space for negotiating the nuanced meanings of human-to-human communication.