Developmental Editing by Scott Norton: A Review

A review of Scott Norton's book on developmental editing.

Looking for an academic developmental editor? Check out my services here.

Buy Scott Norton's book here.

Scott Norton's book is now a classic tome on many editors' bookcases. I first learned about developmental editing in 2019 when setting up my editorial business, and this book spoke to me.

During the pandemic lockdowns, I would read chapters early each morning in bed.

My background in fieldwork and anthropology made the case study approach come alive to me, and I quickly started applying this book in my practice. Soon after, I started offering developmental editing, first to cultural anthropologists and other humanities scholars, then to speculative fiction authors as well.

Fast-forward six years and developmental editing is central to what I do as a book editor and coach. Luckily, the book has moved with me, and I was excited to see that the latest edition includes a chapter on fiction developmental editing!

If you're interested in further honing your craft, I can also highly recommend the University of Chicago's Developmental Editing course, which covers this book in great detail. I took the course as an established professional, and found it incredibly useful for getting another perspective on developmental editing. It's equally useful for beginners, as the exercises are similar to client tasks, so the course meets you where you're at. Taking it did activate my perfectionist streak, but I was happy enough to score 189/190!

As for the book, read on for a discussion of what developmental editing is, and how this book can help you.

What is developmental editing exactly?

Copyediting is about preparing a text for publication. It might just need a light check, or a deeper polish for style and voice, but the aim is to end up with a text of publishable quality, and copy edits are more surface-level rather than concerned with deep structure.

Developmental editing comes earlier. It's all about big-picture issues in a manuscript that impact negatively on the reader experience. Missing transition sentences, unclear arguments, a lack of coherence—that kind of thing.

Nonfiction books and academic articles often have issues with structure, contradictory argumentation, cohesion, pacing, signposting, etc., that they need to resolve. For some issues, a content expert is necessary.

When I was an academic anthropologist, my knowledge of language politics in northern Serbia was highly nuanced, for example, and a developmental editor couldn't have refined certain expert questions that might emerge in a book on that topic. But a developmental editor could help me organize that book in a way that's more logical and satisfying for the reader.

As an aside, developmental editing for fiction is quite different, with some common ground. In fiction texts, issues like plot development, characterisation, points of view, and worldbuilding often need work. But the guiding principle of being an advocate for the reader is the same. This blog post mostly covers nonfiction. If you are interested in training in fiction developmental editing, check out the courses offered by Sophie Playle or Jennifer Lawler.

Resources for developmental editing

Resources on developmental editing for nonfiction are few and far between. The University of Chicago has a programme, which I highly recommend. Editors with an academic research background have often learnt on the job, developing the skills they used as peer reviewers and PhD supervisors—and adding new skills more easy to acquire in managing editor or acquisitions editor roles. Most developmental editors are not subject experts, although some subject knowledge is a great benefit. And there is no single method of working: some developmental editors simply work their magic using intuition and comment boxes alone. For everyone else, Scott Norton’s book is an incredibly important resource, as it sets out clear procedures you can follow, although they do need some adapting for academic developmental editing, as Norton's training and corpus appears to be focused on trade nonfiction.

This book is not only for editors. It emphasises how developmental editors need to understand broader publishing contexts as well as the author’s context of writing and motivation. Publishers typically release books on a market and aim to maximise sales. But profit maximisation is not the only publisher goal, and it is rarely the writer’s core motivation. The publishing case studies in Scott Norton’s book (e.g., the university press, the packager, the regional house, the self-publisher) all offer great insight into these contexts. These details will help writers understand the publishing landscape too.

How is Scott Norton's book organized?

This book is split into ten chapters that each cover a different issue. The chapters are roughly chronological, that is, the early ones cover issues you should normally tackle earlier on in a project.

They cover everything from looking at a book proposal to dealing with developmental formatting issues (e.g. how the pictures tell a story) in the nearly complete text. Each chapter has a different case study that it uses to walk you through a particular issue. The case studies are interesting and extremely diverse. If you are interested in the marketing end of publishing, you will also find a lot of interesting material covering the writing contexts that underpin different kinds of book projects.

One wake-up call in the book is that friction can sometimes occur when developmental editors liaise with authors. In a couple of the case studies, the author outright rejected the editor’s suggestions or was even offended by them. Equally, the developmental editor did not always get everything right and the developmental process was sometimes tense. More positively, there were often Eureka moments when a developmental insight would lead to a substantial reorganisation of the text, which is exciting.

Two kinds of developmental editing

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that there are two varieties of developmental editing. The first phase is an assessing and critiquing phase, where the editor reads a manuscript once or twice, then makes notes annd constructs a detailed editorial report on what needs to be done. Chapters one to six cover this, ending with a how to draft a "blueprint" of the reorganised book, which Norton refers to as the author memo.

The second kind of developmental editing involves a more "hands on" approach from the editor, working closely with the author on reorganising and rewriting the text. My University of Chicago course tutor referred to this as "redlining."

This kind of developmental editing can overlap with line-editing, and comes after the first phase.

Chapters seven to ten cover issues that may arise in this phase.

Let’s take a look at the chapter themes in turn…

1. Concept: Shaping the Proposal

This chapter covers how a developmental editor can make a book proposal shine. Authors do not always have a clear idea of their book’s central concept. The case study here analyses a proposal with too many concepts vying for the reader’s attention. It also discusses how to profile a book’s audience; this is something the author may not have considered in depth yet, but it is key to the book’s success. The case study also considers wider publishing factors (such as the list position) that the author may not have considered. To finish, it deals with how to bring the book’s main vision (and thesis statement) into focus.

2. Content: Assessing Potential

This chapter dives into the book manuscript for the first time and covers how to assess its content. Authors are often caught up in the richness of the material and have many concepts strewed throughout. The developmental editor may be asked to produce a map of all the different concepts (a content summary). They may also make judgements on which concepts could—or should—take center stage. This chapter also discusses working with first-time authors and has a section on how to become a developmental editor. The notes on the American publishing industry also provide fascinating context.

3. Thesis: Finding the Hook

There is a recurring theme in the first three chapters of this book. Simply put, many early drafts have too many concepts, ideas, or theses buried in them. As a result, this chapter deals with finding the main thesis statement and translating it into a hook—a statement that will draw readers in and feature in the blurb. This isn’t always an easy task, and it can reveal the tensions between writing for a market versus writing for another audience. The chapter gives tips on how to make notes on the topics and thesis statements in a manuscript, and on how to come up with a working title.

4. Narrative: Tailoring the Timeline

Many books have a linear timeline, but sometimes a different approach is called for.

This chapter covers strategies for juggling time in nonfiction manuscripts, and POV (point of view), which is a much bigger issue in fiction books. Possible options discussed include reverse timelines, alternative viewpoints, parallel timelines, rotating narratives, and alternate outcomes.

I found that this was one of the more difficult chapters to follow as I have never worked on timeline issues in depth. The University of Chicago course was clarifying here. First, in academic books, the arguments form the main organizing throughline, and editors will clarify how all the different arguments (including an overarching book argument) relate to one another. In trade nonfiction, insight is often more important than arguments, and because these books often deal in concrete situations and narrative over abstract arguments and exposition, the timeline is the key organizing element rather than the arguments. In fiction, timelines also matter, but multiple POVs can add an extra dimension. In short, I found this chapter tricky as trade nonfiction is not an area I have much experience with.

5. Exposition: Deploying the Argument

This chapter moves on to the stage after the main thesis or argument has been defined. It deals with how to deploy the argument in the text. In other words: how to give the text its backbone. It considers brainstorming ideas for presenting the arguments, composing and fine-tuning them. Finally, it covers dealing with any interference with timeline issues.

6. Plan: Drafting a Blueprint

A blueprint is a map of the developmental editor’s suggested revisioning of the manuscript. Many developmental editors will read a proposal or an entire first draft of a manuscript. After reading, they will carry out several of the procedures covered in chapters one to five, and then write an editorial report detailing their revision plan. Next, the author will choose to accept or reject the revision plan and then work alone OR with the developmental editor on a detailed content and line-edit. This chapter includes hints on how to approach authors tactfully, demonstrating that they have ‘approached the project with an open mind and ha[ve] some kind of understanding of, if not personal experience with, the subject’.

7. Rhythm: Setting the Pace

Chapters seven to ten cover topics that a hands-on developmental editor is likely to come across. Norton describes this as "rearranging the text’s furniture." This chapter offers tips on drafting new passages (give the author multiple options!) and on editing for pace.

8. Transitions: Filling in the Blanks

This chapter draws on an unusual case study: the dead author. The task here is to stitch together a book from a draft, while respecting the author’s voice. I would particularly recommend this chapter to new writers who are struggling with cohesion issues.

9. Style: Training the Voice

Dropping down from "big-picture" issues to grappling with the text at sentence level, this chapter was invaluable to me as I'm a substantive editor too. This refers to a mixture of heavy line/copyediting and light developmental interventions, and it's especially useful for multiliterate authors whose first language isn't English.

This chapter includes two incredibly useful tables. The first covers lapses in tone that can be problematic (e.g. overwriting, condescension, overfamiliarity, passivity etc.). And the second covers rhetorical gestures (e.g. analogy, irony, metaphor, amplification). The chapter also gives examples of sentence-level rewrites of a text.

10. Display: Dressing Up the Text

The final chapter uses the example of a travel guidebook to look at issues with displayed matter. Indeed, this covers anything from chapter headings to sidebars, illustrations, icons, tables, and charts. Checking that these are all present and correct is the copyeditor and proofreader’s job. However, looking at the flow of displayed matter and how they tell a story is the developmental editor’s job.

And that's it! If you're curious to learn more about developmental editing, I highly recommend you check out Scott Norton's book or take one of the courses I've mentioned here. And you are very welcome to contact me if you have any questions about the insights and thoughts from this blog post.