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I was visiting my family in Georgia this past weekend, in the town of Cumming (yep, that’s its real name, and that’s how it’s spelled).

This isn’t the area where I grew up. We lived closer toward Atlanta, south and farther east, but my brother has lived in Cumming for about 25 years, and about seven years or so ago my parents decided to join him in a neighborhood not far from his.

Cumming was pretty far outside the stomping grounds of my youth, and even now I visit only a couple of times a year, but over the years I’ve learned my way around well enough. I know which exit to take off the highway, and how far north to go once I do before I hit Mom’s neighborhood. I know which way to turn to get to Kroger and which way for Publix, how to get to the closest gas station, and where city center and the main shopping areas are.

Recently my brother has relocated to a place of his own not far from Mom, his girlfriend lives nearby, and my nephew has moved into his own apartment in a neighboring town with his fiancée.

And this past weekend I realized I have no conception of where in town they all are geographically relative to my mother’s house. I can find them, but only with the help of GPS. Even with the places I know, I’m relying on familiar routes and landmarks rather than a clear sense of the roads, the layout of the town, and its geography.

A caveat: I have never been the greatest with spatial visualization. I’m not a person with an innate sense of direction—all my skill is learned: While I could sometimes impress visitors when I lived in New York with how unerringly I knew which way to go once we got out of the disorienting underground maze of the subway, the truth was I was mentally tracking every turn we made until we ascended, using the direction the train was headed as an anchor point to orient myself. I like to know where I am and how to get where I want to go.

I think that’s why I always loved maps and atlases, the old-fashioned kind: large unfolded paper maps I could spread out and give myself a clear, comprehensive sense of where I am in the world and of my surroundings; the intriguing places I might go; and all the many paths I could take to get there.

And I think, not coincidentally, that that’s also a prime reason I love analyzing and editing a story.

The Essential Element of an Edit

Last week I wrote about what advances in technology might cost us, even as it makes other things easier and more straightforward, and maps are one of the things I dearly miss. GPS is very good at getting me where I’m going, but it doesn’t really help me get a sense of where I am. Though I have been visiting Cumming for more than 25 years, I still have only a rudimentary understanding of the area.

So this trip, as soon as I got back home to Austin, I pulled up a map of the area and finally got an objective big-picture overview of how the town was laid out and where everyone was. Now I feel more confident that I understand the geography, and the next time I’m there I suspect I’ll have a much more intuitive and comprehensive understanding of how to get where I want to go.

Among my editorial services for authors, in addition to consultations I offer two types of developmental/substantive edit, an overview edit and a full developmental edit (single or multiple passes).

Both start with what I always describe as the big-picture map view of an author’s story: an extremely thorough and extensive editorial letter offering my high-level feedback of how well the story is working as a whole, and what areas may benefit from clarification, development, or strengthening and why, as well as broad-view suggestions and questions for how the author might address these areas.

Then, if an author chooses the full dev edit, they also get more granular embedded notes throughout the manuscript, which add specific and detailed comments within the story itself that expand and build upon the big-picture “map view.” I liken these to turn-by-turn GPS instructions that help guide an author along the route step by step.

But what I don’t offer is an option for authors to get only the embedded notes (at least not on a first pass), and there’s a specific reason for that: Without the comprehensive overview, the turn-by-turn instructions don’t let the author get a clear, overarching sense of their story.

Developmental Editing Pitfalls

This is why one of my pet peeves about editing (and I have a few) is when an author will tell me or show me feedback they received from a developmental editor that stays mostly at the GPS level.

This is when an editor gets caught up in the smaller, more granular details of a story and their suggestions are too narrowly focused—rather than offering that essential 30,000-foot objective big-picture view that authors often welcome help attaining.

This kind of feedback may look like advice for tidying up the sentences, or may focus on minutiae like a character’s name or appearance details, or small inconsistencies in the story.

There’s a place for this type of edit, but it’s in the line-editing and copyediting stages, after the author (and editor, if you’re using one) have assessed the story on a foundational and global level: how well it’s holding together overall, how effectively the story is told, whether all the key storytelling elements are working as strongly and cohesively as they can. Line editing isn’t what a developmental edit is meant to focus on.

Read more: “What Kind of Editor Do You Need?”

Another variation of a less effective developmental edit may offer specific insights on the granular beats and moments of a scene, which can be greatly helpful and is indeed part of an effective developmental edit. But without the comprehensive, global analysis of the story as a whole, then like me in Cumming, an author may be blindly following the GPS instructions with no real sense of the terrain as a whole, where they are in it, or how to get where they want to go.

It’s as if the editor forgets they are supposed to provide the comprehensive map view and they get stuck in the car with the author themselves, directing the author along whatever route they think best, rather than offering the drone-view information that allows the author to most effectively determine their own way.

That’s not to say that this type of editor doesn’t provide an editorial letter, just that they may be taking too narrow a focus, rather than doing what a good edit is meant to do: zoom out so that an author can see the topography and gain an objective, comprehensive understanding of their story.

And of course, perhaps the least helpful and potentially most damaging variation on an ineffective developmental edit is the prescriptive edit: where a developmental author assumes the role of All-knowing Expert and instructs authors on the “best” way to tell their story, or the right way to “fix” something that’s “wrong.”

Like an overbearing tour guide ruthlessly directing their travelers on the experience they think they should be having, these editors all but grab the wheel from the author. They may direct you toward attractions they feel are most compelling without ever giving you a comprehensive sense of the area so that you can determine what kind of journey you actually want to have—or even so that you can experience it yourself, rather than through them.

At the end of a good edit you should have a much more profound and comprehensive view of your story, a map view clearly in your mind so that even after your work with the editor is over, they’ve left you with that deep orientation to the world of your story, its structure, and every storytelling element within it, rather than simply an instruction list to follow.

There is even a place for that type of prescriptive editing, if the author wants it. But it is not the purpose and shouldn’t be the focus of a good developmental or substantive edit. 

In unskillful developmental edits like these, the editor is offering the granular turn-by-turn GPS instructions, but without that essential, comprehensive map view it doesn’t help orient the author to the story in its entirety: what’s working, what areas may not be as effective as they need to be, and how it all fits together.

Until an author has that big-picture overview, they’re simply following instructions without any clear understanding of how they are situated in their own story—and that’s the key purpose of an effective, useful, skillful developmental edit.

Making the Journey Your Own

The editor’s job as I see it is to help the author see their own manuscript more clearly and objectively so they have a deeper and more thorough understanding of the topography of their story; offer insight on where they may have gotten off-track; and, where needed, help point them toward the routes that may get them where they want to go.

When they are on the road and traveling the route, a writer may not have the bird’s-eye view of their story that every author needs. It’s the proverbial forest and the trees, another metaphor (okay, cliché) I often use: It’s not that I or any other editor know the “right” way to tell the story, just that the author is deep in the forest and we’re able to get the global view from an objective distance to tell them where they are within the woods, and what paths are available for them to get them where they’re going.

It’s not an editor’s purpose to tell the author which path to take or where to go. Editing is a collaboration—good editing, at least—where the editor is, in another of my endless metaphors, the sherpa for the author’s journey.

It’s not our expedition; our function is simply to understand where you want to go and facilitate your journey to get there as effectively as possible, helping you avoid the many potential pitfalls and dangers that we may be more familiar with because we’ve taken so many trips with so many authors. That’s why you hire a sherpa, for their expertise in the terrain—but it’s your journey to take.

Even with editors who aren’t prescriptive, offering suggestions and solutions at the turn-by-turn level without that comprehensive overview of the geography leaves an author traveling blind. GPS can offer you a variety of routes to get to your destination, and it can even show you how long each may take and the traffic you may encounter, but that’s just one of many considerations of how you want to get to where you’re going.

Maybe there are other stops you want to make along the way or include as part of your journey. Maybe it’s more important to take a scenic route than simply the “correct” or most expedient one. Merely following granular instructions robs you of autonomy and agency in determining what kind of trip you want to have. It focuses simply on the mechanics of moving you from one place to another, but it doesn’t offer you the broader and more complete perspective that allows you to orchestrate your own experience, to fully understand the terrain you’re traveling and decide how you want to get where you want to go—to make the trip your own.

At the end of a good edit you should have a much more profound and comprehensive view of your story, a map view clearly in your mind so that even after your work with the editor is over, they’ve left you with that deep orientation to the world of your story, its structure, and every storytelling element within it, rather than simply an instruction list to follow.

This is why I always say editing and revision are both the real work of writing—the main work, in fact—and also where the magic happens. It’s because once you understand that global overview of your story, you are empowered to complete the journey that’s going to offer you the experience you most want to have, and that you most want your fellow travelers—i.e., your readers—to have as well.

Authors, if you haven’t already, please download my free “Get It Edited” guide—an extensive manual for how to find, vet, and work with the right editor for you. It’s too important a process not to ensure you find a reputable, experienced editor who is expert in your genre and the right editorial fit for you and your story, and this guide will show you where to look, what to look for, what it should cost, and how to assess an editor’s qualifications, experience, and style.

Meanwhile, let me hear from you, friends. What have your experiences with editors been, if you’ve worked with them—either directly or in-house? What type of editorial feedback is most helpful to you? How do you make sure you’re getting the kind of feedback you need, that’s most useful, when you’re working with an editor (or with crit partners or beta readers—see my free downloadable guide for providing specific questions that may help yield actionable, useful feedback from noneditors). Have you encountered any other editorial pet peeves of your own?

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