Levels of Story Editing

In this blog post I'm going to go over the different levels of editing and what they all mean, as well as answer some common questions about the editing process. Along with each explanation, I'll include a short snippet of an example edit (except for developmental editing and outline critique, which are rather hard to show an example of in just a single paragraph).

​For my example, I'll be using an old homework assignment I did in college (actually it was the scene that eventually became the basis of my sci-fi novel, Soot of the Stars.)

1. Outline Critique
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An outline critique is pretty obvious. It's exactly what it sounds like. This edit would come before you'd even written your first draft (or perhaps if you got stuck in the middle of it and wanted a second opinion on your outline.) An editor would look at your outline and give feedback on your plot structure, character development, and world to help you finish the outline and fill in gaps that you may be missing. This is basically a Developmental Edit, but on your outline, rather than on your fully-written manuscript. It can be a great way to catch any major plot holes or missing character elements before you go through all of the trouble of writing it (which makes your revisions much easier). Of course many authors don't use an outline, and simply discover their story as they're writing their first draft. In that case, we move on to Developmental Editing.
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2. Developmental Editing
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Developmental editing is an edit of the large-scale elements of your story. An editor will take a look at your plot, character development, story flow, scenes, world-building, and theme. So for instance, they could read your first chapter and tell you that you need more set-up, that your world doesn't make sense and it needs to be explained a bit more. Or they could say that you have too much set-up and you need to cut out some chunks of world-building exposition to make room for more action and dialogue. They'll take a look at your plot structure and tell you if you've hit all of the important milestones. They'll give you feedback on your ending, whether your climax makes sense and if it fulfills the promises that the premise of your story set forth. They'll look at your character development and tell you if they're arcs feel complete and whole, and if they connect to your characters on a deeper level, or if you need to do more work on building that connection emotionally. 

This type of editing will usually end up requiring quite a bit of revision — not just editing of single sentences, but moving whole chunks of scenes and adding in dialogue and world-building details, and rearranging the story elements to make a more cohesive whole. Here is where you're assembling the puzzle pieces in the right order to make a complete picture. Which is why this level of editing should come first, before you hunker down and take it sentence by sentence to edit and polish.
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3. Line Editing
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After the developmental edit, it’s time for line editing. A line edit is similar to copyediting (and the two are often confused). The main difference is that line editing is more in-depth, and it’s main focus is to make each line true to the writer’s individual style and the emotional tone of the book. They will carefully reach each line, and work to tighten up the sentences, trim unnecessary pieces, and make the writing as clear and succinct as it needs to be, all the while making the writer’s overall style and voice consistent throughout the story.

​4. Copyediting
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Copyediting comes next, after you are confident that your story's plot, scenes, and timeline is in the right order and that the tone and voice of the writing is consistent. Copyediting deals with sentence structure, flow, and larger-scale grammar elements. Rather than moving around entire scenes or chunks of scenes around, during copyediting you are moving around elements on the sentence level. Does each sentence say what it needs to? Are any of your lines confusing or missing important elements? Does your dialogue flow well and make sense? Is your story consistent and do your names, ages, dates, and timelines all line up throughout the whole plot? Is your writing following a consistent set of grammar rules?​

​5. Proofreading
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Proofreading is the last step. It's going through the writing with a fine comb to catch the duplicated words, extra spaces, comma errors, minor grammar fixes, and all of the minutiae that has been missed in the previous rounds of editing. Once this edit is done, the text should be ready for publishing, so it's a vital step in publishing a professional, polished manuscript. It often gets confused with copyediting and line editing. Proofreading should not be re-arranging texts or rewriting sentences. By the time you get here, the writing itself should be solid and have already been edited to the place it needs to be. This is just for catching mistakes or tiny, tiny problems that have been overlooked. If you need to rewrite sentences here, then that means that you should go back to a copy edit or a line edit before moving on to proofreading. ​

​Common Questions
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Where does beta-reading fall in the editing process?

Beta reading can be an important step of getting feedback for your work. And while you want your story to be readable, and to show it's best qualities, you don't want to go through all of the editing, send it to beta readers, and then have them give you a bunch of feedback that makes you want to change large aspects of your writing and start the whole editing process over again. 
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Because of that, you should do beta reading right around the time that you do your developmental edit of your story. That's basically what a beta reader is, after all. They're giving you feedback, from a reader's perspective, on what they felt about the world (whether you explained things too much or not enough), whether they connected to the characters (and how to build the connection more if it's missing) and if the plot was satisfactory and made sense to them as they were reading. These are all the large-scale story issues that are considered in the developmental editing stage. Some beta readers might catch a weird sentence or a comma splice or two, but that's not really what they care about while they're reading. They care about how they feel about the story. ​
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I'm self-publishing, can I edit my own manuscript? 

Some writers love the editing process (I certainly do, which is why I became an editor) and some (like me) edit other people's writing for a living. So you'd think that you could edit your own writing, right? And you can. To an extent. But no matter how good you are at editing, having another set of eyes to look over your work and give a second opinion is invaluable. You've read over your story hundreds, if not thousands of times, and eventually you stop reading what is on the page in front of you, and your brain just fills in what it expects to see because it has grown so familiar to you. You won't even see that duplicated 'the' or the extra space or that you have a whole chapter that shouldn't even be there, because those things have always been there, so why would you question them now? 

For that reason, it’s always worth it to get a second pair of eyes on your story, to help your writing be the best it can be.
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Do I need all levels of editing to self-publish? 

In an ideal world, yes, you would be able to put your manuscript through every level of editing to make your story as polished and professional as you possibly could make it. As a self-publishing author, you have to work twice as hard to make your story equal to that of a book published by a traditional publisher. 

But editing costs money, and your book may not make money for years to come, so it's not always feasible to pay for every level. So you have to pick and choose which are the most important. And it really just depends on what your story needs. Which isn't a very helpful answer, I know. 

But maybe you feel really good about the structure of your story and the development of your characters, and you've managed to get a few beta readers, so you have some feedback about the large aspects, which has allowed you to revise a few problem areas. Do you really need to also pay a developmental editor? Possibly not (especially if you really trust your beta readers). 

And then maybe you worked on your story yourself, doing a copy edit over and over again, using every trick to help yourself edit your own words (reading out loud, changing your font and program, and taking breaks between edits). Do you need a professional copy edit? Maybe. It could be beneficial, but if you can't afford it, then you could get away with doing it yourself. If you also had a beta reader, or a friend who was also a writer, to help mark confusing lines or things to be re-written, then that would be even better).

Now proofreading is more tricky. In my opinion a proofread always needs another pair of eyes. Especially if you're self-publishing, you want your manuscript to be completely free from errors, to make it as professional as you possibly can, and a proofread is a necessary investment towards that end. 

So I would say, that if you can afford it, at least two levels of editing would put you on a really good path to publishing. But if you have to choose only one, then proofreading would be my suggestion. 
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Do I need to self-edit if I'm submitting my manuscript to a publisher?

If your goal is to get your manuscript accepted by a traditional publisher, then they will be the ones to handle the rounds of ending (just like they take care of the marketing copy, the cover art, and the other elements of publishing). So you don't necessarily need to do all of this on your own (and you certainly don't need to pay out of pocket for it). However, you do want to make sure your manuscript is good enough that the publishers can see past some clunky writing and a few odd plot elements to find the heart of the story — the reason why they should publish your book. They'll be judging you story on what they read — whether that's the synopsis, the first chapter, or the entire thing depends on a lot of factors. So you want to be sure that your story puts its best foot forward, to give it the best chance at getting accepted. To that end, you definitely need to put in the time and effort to edit it yourself to the best of your ability, to make sure that you show your best work.

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​Hopefully this helps clears up some confusion on what each edit’s purpose is. If you have any other questions, feel free to comment on the post, and I’ll do my best to answer!

Happy editing!! 

​--Megann ​

about the author
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Megann is an editor, writer, and artist specializing in fantasy, sci fi, and basically anything with magic. Or dragons. Or starlight and spaceflight and gods that walk the worlds. She has a children's book published (co-authored with her sister) titled Bellow of the Beast, and she is in the middle of writing her first full-length fantasy/sci-fi novel. ​​