Developmental edit

A developmental edit looks at a draft the way a reader experiences it: as a whole. It asks whether the piece knows what it is saying, whether the parts come in an order that builds, what the reader needs and does not get, and what the writer included because they love it rather than because the piece needs it. Book and magazine editors deliver this as an edit letter, and that form is worth keeping: a letter forces the editor to rank problems and explain them, instead of scattering a hundred comments of equal weight through the margins.

This skill does not touch the sentences: line edits on a draft whose structure is about to change are wasted work. The writer decides what to take; the letter's job is to make the most important problems impossible to miss.

When to use it