WHAT DOES A DEVELOPMENT EDITOR DO? (In the Entertainment industry. What does a Development Editor Do?)

Script Development Editor / Photo Credit: Eden Make Movies

WHAT DOES A DEVELOPMENT EDITOR DO? (In the Entertainment industry. What does a Development Editor Do?)       

Bruce Bisbey…please follow me at: https://dumbdogproductionsllc.blogspot.com or https://www.facebook.com/DumbDogProductionsLLC/ thank you.

What Does A Development Editor Do?

Developmental editing is a form of writing support that comes into play before or during the production of a publishable manuscript, especially in the area of non-fiction writing. As explained by Scott Norton in his book Developmental editing: a handbook for freelancers, authors, and publishers, developmental editing involves "significant structuring or restructuring of a manuscript's discourse". Developmental editors are a type of language professional.

There are two kinds of editing in this world: copy editing and developmental editing (the kind that most people don’t talk about). For the copy editor, the mechanics of punctuation, grammar, and spelling are what matter—and any writer worth their salt knows those are key to a final draft. For the developmental editor, however, it’s the mechanics of the book, manuscript or script as a whole that matter. And overlooking those can have far-reaching consequences.

So, when do you take on a developmental editor? It depends a bit on where your own strengths lie.

The work of developmental editors

A good developmental editor will be fluent in your genre whether you’re writing commercial/upmarket fiction, non-fiction, or short stories, and ideally, s/he will also know the market/s you’re aiming for. In fact, s/he should be able to tell you straight up if you’re writing for the wrong market.

A developmental editor may guide an author (or group of authors) in conceiving the topic, planning the overall structure, and developing an outline—and may coach authors in their writing, chapter by chapter. This is true developmental editing, but not the most common way of working. More commonly, a developmental editor is engaged only after someone (usually the publisher) decides that the authors' draft requires substantial revision and restructuring. In these cases, developmental editing is a radical form of substantive editing.

Which is not to say that you do not. But writers often struggle with keeping perspective on their own work; they’re too close to it to know what does or doesn’t work for another reader. Writers unconsciously fill in the narrative gaps with their own knowledge of the book. They can be enthralled with their subject, without considering general interest. This can apply to fiction and non-fiction writers.

Irrespective of when the developmental editor is brought into a writing project, authors retain control over the document and are responsible for providing the content. An editor who creates content is no longer an editor but a ghostwriter.

Unlike with punctuation, there is no objective authority on how a book should work. But professional developmental editors work at a distance, which makes them better suited to giving you an honest opinion than, say, your spouse, best friend, or even a fellow writer.

Talk to enough developmental editors and you’ll hear the same phrase repeated: It’s about showing the writer what works.

Sources, References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, WikiBooks, Pinterest, IMDB, Linked In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, Film Daily, New York Film Academy, The Balance, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide Magazine, Blurb, Media Match, Quora, Creative Skill Set, Chron, Investopedia, Variety, No Film School, Daily Variety, The Film Agency, Best Sample Resume, How Stuff Works, Career Trend, Producer's Code of Credits, Truity, Production Hub, Producers Guild of America, Film Connection, Variety, Wolf Crow, Get In Media, Production Beast, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, UCAS,

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Script Development Editor / Photo Credit: Eden Make Movies