Podcast: What to Expect from a Developmental Edit
With anne hawley & Rachelle Ramirez
In this episode of the Write Anyway Podcast from Pages & Platforms and the Happily Ever Author Club, host Anne Hawley talks to developmental editor Rachelle Ramirez about the ins and outs of developmental editing. They discuss what writers should expect from a developmental edit, including the importance of a clean manuscript, how to identify story types, stakes, character changes, and more. Rachelle offers insights into common challenges authors face and provides actionable steps to refine a manuscript. Whether you're writing fiction or a memoir, this episode offers valuable advice on taking your manuscript to the next level.
Subscribe for weekly writing insights at https://pagesandplatforms.com/subscribe.
transcript
Anne Hawley: Are you a writer who's taken your manuscript as far as you can, and you think you might benefit from a developmental edit? Then this one's for you.
Hello and welcome to The Write Anyway podcast from pages and platforms and the happily Ever Author Club. I'm Anne Hawley, and in today's episode I talk with my fellow developmental editor, Rachelle Ramirez, about what writers should expect from a developmental edit.
Let's listen in.
Rachelle Ramirez, my good friend.
Rachelle Ramirez: Hi, how are ya?
Anne Hawley: How are you? One of the things that comes up a lot with writers is, what can I expect from a developmental edit? What does that mean and how do I prepare for it?
Rachelle Ramirez: I make sure that we have the same understanding at least of what a developmental edit is because somebody might come to me thinking that I'm going to do line by line editing and make suggestions for any sentence that I think can be improved.
That's not the case for developmental editing. We are looking for specific things, so I am going to ask that they give me at least a clean manuscript, which would be put it through Grammarly, pro writing aid, something like that, so that I'm not distracted by those things. If you want my best brain power for your story let's have me not stumble on words and spelling and punctuation and that sort of thing.
Anne Hawley: It's my understanding that a developmental edit can happen before some serious further editing takes place. So when you talk about having a clean manuscript, a lot of it might be changing after what you get back from me as an editor.
Right.
Rachelle Ramirez: I'm just saying that what it is you are sending me, go ahead and put it through Grammarly so I'm not stumbling on words and, and punctuation, but there are specific things that as a developmental editor I'm looking for so that I can help you and we could go over those if you'd like.
Anne Hawley: Yeah, let's pretend I have a manuscript, I'm reasonably happy with it, but I know it needs work and I know it's like it's too long. That would be a typical example. It's just like, it's way too long.
What should I do? Or it doesn't feel quite right. Or I've had, say, a beta reader or a friend read it and say there might be something not working, what's the first thing you look for? What happens next?
Rachelle Ramirez: Okay, the first thing I'm looking for is what kind of story is this so that I am framing all the rest of my questions around, are these the best decisions? Are these the best pieces for this type of story? So examples would be, is it action? Is it crime? Is it a love story? Is it a worldview story? These all have different expectations of what the reader is looking for and how the story would be structured and each of those different kinds of stories.
There are the way we see it at pages and platforms is there are seven basic kinds of stories and each of those seven different types of stories have their own basically 21 core moments, or the expected structure for that story type. Doesn't mean that you're gonna write the same story everybody else is, it's just there's a general act structure for each of those story types.
So I'm gonna use what kind of story is this to answer the rest of the questions. Like, so is this the best structure for the story? Is there a clear character change and does that work throughout the story? Based on this story type is the point of view consistent and is it the best point of view to use for this this particular story?
Does it fluctuate? Is it what's the narrative device? Who's telling the story? From what point in time? Who are they telling the story to?
So I'm also looking at the premise for that story. What's the overall message that the author is wanting to send to the reader with this story?
Is that consistent throughout?
Anne Hawley: It seems to me that an author, unless they're very, very experienced or they know your particular way of you know, the seven story types and the pages and platforms method, it seems very likely that they don't know what type of story that they sent you. So it seems to me. You'd have to read the whole thing first just to figure out what kind of story they think they're telling and then go back and, okay, so once you have figured out the story type, which then gives you a clue to what all those other things should be, the character want and need, the premise statement and so forth, then what do you do?
Rachelle Ramirez: Well, I'm looking specifically for how can I, for myself, answer those questions. So that gives me sort of a template that I can give back to my to my client. So. If I know, hey, I've made sure I've answered these questions for myself, then it helps me put a structure to how I'm giving that to the client, and then what they can do with that information, how I can tailor that information to, here's what I think your next steps are, consider this, consider this.
Here, might be your step after that. I wanna get them at least two, maybe even three steps of here are the big chunks of things that you can do with your manuscript. I am going to ask those questions. I'm gonna look at all my sort of, I have key words, you know, that I'm looking for in my template of here, does this work, does this work?
Does this work? Where did I get bored? Where did I get confused? I'm probably gonna answer those questions as well. But you know, are there too many characters? Does this story meet the vision that the author told me they had for this story?
Is this the kind of story that they want to tell? How can I better help them to meet what they told me they thought they were writing or they wanted to write, versus what they have actually on the page? It may be that, hey, your original vision doesn't meet what you have on the page, but you have a great story here.
Do you want to commit to that? Maybe you need to just change the way you're thinking about it and say, Hey, this story works. This is what it became.
Or it could be no. I wanted to tell such and so story. I wanted to evoke this particular emotion in my readers. And then we need to have a conversation about, what are the pieces that you could look at that would change that, and where did it lead us in a different direction?
Anne Hawley: Can you in a, in a sort of list like way, give those main questions that you ask. And when you have those, do you give them back to the author of the manuscript?
Rachelle Ramirez: yes. So I'm gonna go through what kind of story is this. That's gonna also tell me what's, what structure am I looking for there? I'm gonna go through what's the primary character change in the story. How does the character change from the beginning to the end?
I'm gonna look at point of view. Is this the best narrative device for this story, is that consistent? I'm gonna look at that premise. Is this the basic idea that you wanna put forth for your reader? I'm gonna look at stakes. This is a big one for manuscripts that I get. Are the stakes clear? Are the stakes on a sort of continuum from, is this going from you know, one point and getting worse and worse and worse and worse?
Anne Hawley: What do you mean by stakes?
Rachelle Ramirez: so stakes are what the character has to gain and what they have to lose. Most often we're focused on what they have to lose, right? But when we're looking at what they have to gain, it may or may not be connected to what they want. So I'm looking at what do they have to lose here?
What do they possibly have to gain? The character may or may not acknowledge that themselves. The narrator may or may not specifically state this is what they want, but the character needs to be going after a specific desire, which is related to the stakes, and then what do they have to gain or lose based on what it is they want and the decisions that they're making as the obstacles are put in their path towards what it is that they want.
Anne Hawley: So I'm an author. Let's, let's just say I, I'm an author of a story that it doesn't really involve stakes. What would you have to say to, to, like these criteria applying to say a more literary story with a more character driven arc? That, that it's not like they have life and death to, to gain and lose.
Right. What would you say to
Rachelle Ramirez: right. So I'd say, well, first of all, does your character have a desire? What is it they don't want and what gets in the way? And I would say, Hey, if they actually have something they want and things are getting in the way, then there are actually stakes in your story. Maybe you're just not identifying them.
So in a worldview story, it's your whole idea of how the world works or how you view one thing like family or parenting or work or whatever it is that they have to, you know, gain and accept a big truth. So it's the difference between accepting reality and learning more versus staying in their old status quo comfortable position.
So is comfort, is that one of the stakes? Hey, if I accept this new information, am I gonna lose my comfortable, safe, status quo place? That's, those are some stakes there. You know, there are stakes in that. What if your client's writing a validation story, which is based on, you know, failure and success, and maybe work or some other aspect of life, then the stakes there might be their professional level of success, what others think of them versus what they think of themselves. It might be a self-esteem thing, or it might be , that they have to look at are my values here?
The stakes might be their values versus their external success in some sort of aspect of their life. So there are stakes, even if they're not life and death with car crashes, so you're looking for what can they gain and what can they lose.
And any change is closing one door behind us, it's losing something. They're making choices throughout the story and what are they giving up? What are they closing doors to? They're looking for that.
And it could be the simply the consequences of what it is they're choosing or what it is they're going after or how they're going after it.
Anne Hawley: When you have a client who's written a memoir, isn't that basically their autobiography? They're telling the truth about their life and you can't really structure that story like a story?
Rachelle Ramirez: Yeah, a lot of people will come to me with something that looks a little bit more like an autobiography than a memoir. So there's a difference. So the autobiography is generally for the famous, the infamous. You probably need to be have that on contract ahead of time or know pretty well that you've got a significant number of followers or people who wanna read that.
Because it's, this is my life. This is what happened from beginning to end which is very interesting to some people if you're already a maybe public figure of interest. If you're writing a memoir, you're focusing on one aspect of your life. So that might be, Hey, when I was six, this happened. When I was 18, this happened. And when I was, you know, 39, this happened. But those three things are directly related to one another. Like, this is my experience with my father. This is my experience with lovers in general, or this is my experience with parenthood. So every memoir has a story structure that is similar, the same as a novel.
You have at beginning, middle, and end. You have all those things. You have a story type, you have a character change, you have a premise, you have an idea you wanna put forth to the reader. Your character has a desire, what they're going after, one thing they're going after in a story, a singular desire.
There can be some other peripheral things, but there's one main challenge throughout the story that takes the whole story from beginning to end. And your character will have, desires that you need to identify as if you are a character. You are the character, you are the protagonist in this story, and it's written from a first person point of view.
So all the aspects of novel, so-called rules and structure apply to the memoir.
Anne Hawley: When the author gets the manuscript back, assuming they aren't just completely flattened by being told that it doesn't work and it's got all kinds of problems, which I know you wouldn't say in so many words, what can they expect their next steps to have to be? What's the, like in all the manuscripts you've, you've developed, what are, let's say the top three most common first things they need to do?
Rachelle Ramirez: Yeah, it's rare that I get a manuscript that doesn't need significant effort from the author after a developmental edit, because they're coming to me with a first draft, a second draft, maybe a third draft. They're still in the early stages of the story, and we're looking at the big picture challenges.
And so the developmental edit will be the toughest edit that you get and probably the most essential. So I'm going to, specifically with my feedback state, here's what I thought worked. Here's where I thought you did meet the vision that you told me you want for your story. Here's what I think the story type is.
Do we agree? Is that the story you wanna tell? And then we work from there. After I've read the manuscript, we need to have a conversation, because my written feedback is gonna then be based on this conversation. Less than 50% of the time will I get a draft that matches what the writer said they were sending to me in my editorial language and review.
So. The tools that I'm going to use to analyze the story need to be the right ones for the story that they want to tell. So we're gonna have a conversation about that. Do we agree? 'cause if I think you've sent me a story that begins with a love story, in the middle, it's an action story. In the end, it's a crime story, i'm gonna say, okay, which one do we wanna, analyze this story for? Which do you want the one for me to send you the feedback on? How do we turn this into an action story? Or how do we focus more on the crime story or how do we focus more on the love story? So those are important things to have.
And then, so I'm gonna say, this is what I think works for that story type and that what you wanna do, and here are the challenges that I see from largest to kind of mid range. I'm not gonna give you the small line by line stuff. I'm not gonna give you the grammar and I mean. I do probably put some comments in the manuscript because I just can't help it.
I'm an editor. I'll put some things in there. But you can expect a broader picture of structure. Are there too many characters? Can there be characters combined? Is this book too long for the type of story It is? What scenes might you consider removing because they're duplicative? Or what scenes might be missing?
And I'll be specific, Hey, we're missing a scene where, you know, the lovers break up based on the resolution you have here for the story, the climactic choices they're making. They're somewhere along the line and I'll suggest where. They don't have to take my advice, obviously. That you need, that this specific scene in order to meet the expectations of the reader and in order to set up your later payoffs.
So, I'll be looking for specifics like that. What can you take out? What might you need to add in order to meet the expectations of your reader and tell this story consistently? And I'll be very specific about that. That's a huge pass of a draft right there.
Taking out what you don't need, call it a pass, call that a draft. Then you know, adding the scenes that you need. That's a whole nother draft. Then you go and you look through the whole manuscript and say, okay, from there, now what? How do I make these individual scenes work? How do I sew them together?
That's a third pass. So after a developmental edit, you'll have at least three passes before it goes to your line editor if you choose to get one.
Anne Hawley: And would you say the most common problem, I mean if you had to pick of, of manuscripts in the narrative realm of memoir and fiction, that it doesn't align with a single story type, is that the most common problem that you run across?
Rachelle Ramirez: Yeah. I think overcomplicating a story is very common for first, second, third drafts because we have so many ideas. We're writers, of course we do. We have all these ideas and we've been, you know, free writing and we've been including, and a lot of times people are gonna hire me because they're gonna say, look, I've got some stuff in here, it might be darlings. I feel like everything in here should be included, and yet I've got 140,000 word manuscript, so something needs to come out, right? And then I'll, I'll help them through that.
One of the biggest things that I see is the challenge with the stakes and the desire of the character. What does this character really want? What are they going after from the beginning to the end? We're looking for one thing. Doesn't mean other things can't happen in the story, but do we have one singular problem that the plot is structured around for the entire story? And is it consequential? Did you make the reader care? Did the, did the protagonist hit obstacles in trying to get what they want? And are there clear stakes that make them make difficult decisions as the obstacles are presented?
Anne Hawley: What would you say to the author who is considering hiring you as a developmental editor and says, well, you're just applying a formula and my book isn't formulaic. You must hear that
Rachelle Ramirez: Yep. Every book that's written, every manuscript that comes to me, doesn't feel formulaic. And that's how you want to write a story generally, that it doesn't feel like a formula. You can, there's nothing wrong with that, but the idea is just to use these 21 core moments, the questions, what are the five major things that need to be in act one?
What are the five major things that need to be in act two? What happens at that midpoint shift? Do you have a saggy middle? Do we have a change of direction in the story? Is there a hinge there? What are the five major things that need to happen in Act three, and what are the five major things that need to happen in Act four? Do they meet the expectations of the story type?
All the rest is your your, how you flesh it out, your particulars, your type of story, your setting, your world, your character's thoughts and feelings, and all of that is in there. But is this a consistent story with those 21 core moments? That's really important.
And that doesn't lead to it being a formula. It leads to it being a story that works because over time we've developed expectations of story. Our brains have accepted those expectations of story. And we want setups, payoffs, we want a resolution, we want a climatic choice. What are we moving towards?
Are those stakes? Are the problems escalating throughout the story? Those are all important pieces to know, and that 21 core moment structure helps you determine that. So I'm looking at that barest bones of the structure, the barest structure there that holds your story together.
Anne Hawley: Well, the author who is interested in a developmental edit, we can certainly link them up in the show notes or in the notes below if they would like to contact you.
Rachelle Ramirez: I'd be happy to talk to anyone working on a memoir or fiction. They can reach me at rachelleramirez.com. They can find all the information there. Or email me at Rachelle@pagesandplatforms.com.
Anne Hawley: Well, thank you, Rachelle.
Rachelle Ramirez: Thank you.
Anne Hawley: See ya soon.
If you'd like a weekly dose of writing, insight and mindset and marketing tips in your inbox, subscribe to the write anyway newsletter@pagesandplatforms.com slash subscribe. And that's it for this episode of the Write. Anyway, podcast, thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.