What Are DEs For
I was on Threads recently. A post caught my eye. Of course, the writer was talking about developmental editing. Their concern was the following: award-winning Black fantasy author N.K. Jemison recently said that developmental editing is not necessary.
Jemison’s comments sparked a great deal of controversy on Threads. The conversation includes the usual scream-crying, angry outbursts, and disappointingly unnuanced takes. However, the conversation also points at a series of myths that people have about developmental editing. I’d like to address a few.
Myth 1: Developmental edits are for people who do not know how to write.
I can understand why someone believes that high level edits (structure, plotline, characterization) are part of a writer’s repertoire. I can understand why someone might believe those tasks should be done by the writer themselves. However, it is also true that writers get stuck. In the academic world, we can be so deep into the specificity of our project that we lose sight of the readers who will come to us as dilettantes or, at the very least, non-experts. In other words, we can lose sight of the fact that writing is another form of teaching. The same is true for other genres: poets and fiction writers can lose the plot literally because they find themselves stuck or they are trying something new.
Asking for another reader is not the equivalent of saying “I’m a bad writer.” In fact, it is the equivalent of saying, “I am a writer who is interested in how my words are landing.”
Myth 2: You should only rely on people who are in your field or who are your target audience.
There are some fortunate folks who have a cadre of people ready to read for them and those people are their target audience and those people give great feedback. I hope you can hear the lilt of irony in that prose. Even for folks who have communities of readers, they may not be able to get feedback in a timely fashion. They may also have folks who love them who can hear their voice in the writing and who, as a result of that proximity, cannot offer the feedback of a potential reader. They may also have folks who are interested in reading but don’t know how to give great feedback.
Let’s cast all those scenarios aside. Let’s say you do not have a cadre of readers. It is often the case that people are writing projects that have high stakes (hello tenure!) or have dreams attached to them (I always wanted to be a writer but never got high marks in English). Finding folks you know may be more difficult because you have to weed out people in positions of power or people who cannot hold your dreams with care.
A developmental editor comes in with the fresh eyes of a stranger to provide you feedback you’ve specifically requested. It helps that they are experts in a genre or that they are experts in a field. It also helps if they can read as your target audience might.
Myth 3: Using a developmental editor means the work is no longer your own.
Sometimes a DE will suggest an overhaul that radically changes a manuscript. The question for some people will become – especially if that overhaul is successful – does the developmental editor deserve writing credit. My answer to that is a resounding “no.”
As a DE, I make suggestions. Essentially, I provide you with a half-drawn map. If you go down this road, this is what you’ll encounter. Here are other roads and their accompanying treasures and terrors. It is the writer’s choice which road they take or whether they find a new road.
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Writing groups can function as DEs. In the academy, reviewers function as DEs. Acquisition editors can function as DEs. The purpose of a DE is to assist a writer in their ultimate goal of completing a project. Feel free to let me know how I can help.