This question pops up pretty frequently in writing spaces. An author fresh off of writing their draft goes to a Facebook (or Discord) group and says, “Look! I finished! … … … Now what?”
The rapid-fire advice that follows is usually a mix of useful and damaging. “Get it published!” “Get it edited!” “Celebrate and then let it sit a while!” “Send it to me to market!”
I’m sure you’ve heard all of those.
So what’s the truth? That’s the million dollar question and where it gets a little sticky. It also depends entirely on your level of experience in the industry since people at different points in their journey need different things. It also depends on how confident you are in your writing and your craft skills.
How to Know What You Need
Determining your personal requirements is a matter of understanding both what is out there and what will benefit you the most. With first drafts, there are two main services that I would advise for new writers. You don’t necessarily need both, but these are the angles I would suggest you take depending on your requirements:
Hiring a developmental editor
Working with a book coach
I have done both of these services. Sometimes a project isn’t ready for a developmental editor and requires coaching for things like deep craft work. This is things like helping authors work on the parts of writing like knowing how to write in evocative language, deep diving into character voice, or doing things like looking into how to use tension and storytelling techniques.
A developmental edit looks at all the things I mentioned in book coaching but more identifies places that are struggles. A developmental editor will notice that a character’s voice doesn’t work as intended or recognize that the pacing is all wrong. Their job is to point out those difficulties and offer some insights on how to fix them. A book coach walks with you through the process of exactly how to fix them and delivers longer-term advice.
Now, I have done developmental work on outlines before and given feedback on concepts for folks who don’t have a word written and are struggling with their story structure. That’s absolutely possible. However, at that point usually people use a developmental edit to identify things to work on with a book coach.
But That Sounds Expensive
Yeah, unfortunately it certainly can be. You can find people at many price points (I’m actually toward the lower end since I specialize in new authors), but it’s not free. Then again, a good developmental edit or book coach is essentially like taking a college course on writing tailored specifically to you and your unique needs. The cost makes sense.
Also, as you gain experience, you likely won’t need developmental editing or book coaching long term unless you change genres or otherwise branch into places where you feel like you need more support. These expenses are short term educational investments towards your writing career as a whole. They’re not a perennial expense unless you really want them to be.
To explain the cost to you, since it is high, when I am doing one of those deep edits, I am not only reading your book and analyzing the story structure, I am often doing heavy research. As a historian, I do a lot of work with authors writing fantasy, historical, and other such types of works set in times before now. Whether the world is fantastical or not, I often have questions like, “Okay, if they are entirely cut off from the outside world and have been for a hundred years… where are they getting their metal?”
These thoughts and insights come from the fact that I have an $80,000 degree in European History with a focus on the Renaissance. You are also gaining benefit of my nearly twenty years of experience with handling, cleaning, and fighting with swords of multiple types. I am a reenactor and know what fabrics, dyes, and social constructs existed in various places across time. For more modern works, I have a deep well of knowledge and study on things like forensics, police procedure, hand-to-hand combat, and so on.
Those are the things you’re paying for the benefit of. You don’t need to get an $80k BA in history if you can just ask the historian what swords were used in this time period. Sure, you can ask Google, but if you don’t know what to look for or how to find the information, it can be a daunting task. Also, you don’t know what you don’t know. The number of times I’ve seen people not using the right textiles in historical-esque books is significant. And the number of times I’ve seen blatant evidence that people have no idea how armor worked and was worn is even higher.
So Why Do I Need This?
I mean, you might not. That’s the complicated part of this. Is your book about something that requires a lot of deep analysis in an area you aren’t a subject matter expert on? Do you have a strong grasp of story structure and craft? Do you have a degree in creative writing, yourself? You might not need a developmental editor or book coach at all. That’s a very valid possibility.
However, there are a lot of people who don’t have those things, so you’ll want to evaluate what you know and what you think will benefit you.
What Do I Do If I Don’t Need That?
So, if you don’t need the services of a professional developmental editor, your next step is going to be set the book aside for a while then do self-edits on the manuscript until you’re satisfied with it. When that’s done, you can work with beta readers for a while and/or use software like AutoCrit. Once you have, you can look for a line or copy editor to review things and provide the final polish before you send your book off for sale.
If you’re not self-publishing, you can skip the line/copy editor most of the time (though some people still want the book to be deeply polished to increase their chances of getting an agent). You can just start looking for an agent or publisher and writing queries. However, hiring an editor to polish the first couple chapters is a pretty common practice.
A Final Note
I recently encountered someone claiming that editors who do developmental work are predatory because we take money from authors when their books still need months of work. That is categorically untrue. If someone was trying to convince you to hire them to do copy editing after a first draft, I’d beat them with a thesaurus and flee. However, developmental editing and book coaching are designed to teach the skills and knowledge you need to really get your book ready for public consumption.
It is absolutely true that not everybody requires this work. I know people who have never written a book but have PhDs in creative writing. They do not need my developmental edit skills. Coaching for them is more helping them prepare for publishing than it is about polishing their prose. They know what they need on that score.
Nobody can tell you a singular True Way for everyone. Such a thing does not exist. The only wrong way is the one that doesn’t work for you and doesn’t get you to publishing. If something feels wrong for you, then don’t pursue it. Simple as that. However, don’t assume that just because something worked for you or didn’t work for someone else that the path is categorically wrong. It may just be a service you didn’t need.
After all, if you go to a mechanic and ask them to replace a perfectly good drive train that doesn’t need replacing, the fool in that scenario is you. However, if someone else needs their drive train replaced and you tell them that it’s not a necessary procedure, you are doing them a deep disservice. That car ain’t gonna run.
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