Developmental Edit
The diagnosis, mapped inside your manuscript, scene by scene.
What is it?
Everything in the Manuscript Assessment, plus the pass through your actual manuscript.
Everything from the Assessment is here: the editorial letter and the ranked revision plan. Then the findings leave the letter and enter the manuscript itself. Inline comments run through the whole book at the exact lines where a scene stops earning its emotion, where a reaction breaks character logic, where tension leaks, and where something quietly excellent deserves to be named. When the letter says the middle sags, the margins show the precise scenes where it happens.
Alongside it comes the Book Map: a scene-by-scene reverse outline of the story as it currently reads, one line per chapter with a verdict. Read the verdict column straight down and the structure of the whole book speaks for itself.
Once you’ve sat with everything, we get on a wrap-up call and turn the findings into your revision plan. And when you want to talk back at the letter, I answer: every question the feedback raises is part of the service.
Who is it for?
Writers preparing the draft they intend to publish or query
Writers who want every finding located at the exact scene and line
Writers heading into a major revision who want support through it
Assessment or Developmental Edit?
Choose the Assessment if you want the full diagnosis in one document and prefer to carry the revision yourself. Choose the Developmental Edit if you also want the findings mapped inside the manuscript, scene by scene.
What you’ll receive
1
The whole-manuscript read
First as a reader, letting the book do what it wants. Then as an editor, as many passes as it takes.
2
The editorial letter, 10+ pages
One document, the complete diagnosis. Every claim anchored to a specific chapter and a quoted moment.
3
Strengths and concerns, angle by angle
Plot and structure, stakes, character arcs and relationships, the romance arc when it drives the book, tension and pacing, point of view, voice, dialogue, and genre and market fit.
4
What’s working, named
The things revision must protect, so the fixes never cost you what already sings.
5
Where to focus first
The one or two load-bearing issues above everything else.
6
The ranked revision plan
Which fixes move the book most, sequenced so you never polish a scene you’re about to cut.
7
The annotated manuscript
Margin comments pinned to the exact spots where tension drops, a beat lands, or a line undercuts the scene. Comments diagnose; the prose stays yours.
8
The Book Map
One line per chapter, the X-ray of your whole structure, with every plant matched to its payoff.
9
Wrap-up call and follow-up support by email
We talk it through on a call, and I answer every question the letter raises after.
How it unfolds
1
Send your manuscript
2
A slow, close read
3
The letter arrives
4
Notes in your margins, then the call
This is the read I need