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substantive editing

Looseleaf Substantive Editing

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This week I’m going to look at each of Looseleaf’s editorial services and tell you what they are, when you need them, and some tricks you can use to do some editing yourself before you hire it out. Today is substantive editing day.

Railway TrackWhat Is Substantive Editing?

Substantive editing is also called line editing. That’s because for a substantive edit I go through a manuscript line by line and consider how each line could be better. This means it’s a lot more sentence- and word-based that developmental editing, but it’s still focusing on how the manuscript works as a whole. It can go as big as reordering paragraphs and as fine as tweaking a word to sustain your tone. When I do a substantive edit, I look at how the little pieces work together to strengthen your plot or argument, your character development, your theme, your structure, and your ability to reach your audience.

Substantive editing with me often involves some ghostwriting. By that I don’t mean that I insert sentences you have to include. What I mean is that sometimes the suggestions I make in a substantive edit are best communicated through examples. If you need a transition between two paragraphs, I may write one. Then I’ll leave a comment explaining why I did what I did and asking you to look over the change. I may pull a sentence from the end of a paragraph and put it somewhere else, but I’ll want you to make sure I didn’t change the meaning from what you intended.

This means that substantive editing involves a lot of tweaking, reordering, and decision-making from the author—which means that even though a substantive edit may involve grammar-related changes, it can’t stand in for a true copyedit. By the time the edit is done you’ll have changed a lot of text, and any time you make lots of changes you need to go back and make sure the details of those changes are clear and consistent.

When Does a Manuscript Need Substantive Editing?

Your manuscript needs a substantive edit when you think your story or argument is solid, but you want help with the details. A substantive edit won’t overhaul chapters, scenes, and arcs the way a developmental edit will; it will make sure every line is serving the structure you’ve already set up and keeping your ideas on track. So if you’re satisfied with your setup, but you want something more in-depth than an error-hunt (i.e., a copyedit), you should be looking for a substantive editor.

How Can You Do Some Substantive Editing Yourself?

Before you can do a substantive edit, it’s important that you have a concrete vision for your book. If you aren’t sure whether you want a dark tone or a darkly humorous one, you’re going to have trouble doing the fine-tuning the book needs (some of you won’t have any trouble with this, but some discovery writers may need to think about it). After you feel that you understand your structure, you can ask yourself questions. The more you do on your own before hiring an editor, the more that editor’s feedback will help your writing, because the editor won’t be telling you things you already knew.

  • Does this line communicate my purpose to my audience?
  • Would this sentence be more effective earlier or later?
  • Does this word suit the tone/character/viewpoint? Is there a better word?
  • Does this dialogue match the character’s purpose in the book?
  • Does this sentence contribute to my argument, or is it distracting from my main point?
  • Is this action consistent with the character I’ve created? Is it stereotypical or cliché?
  • Is this bit of dialogue didactic or stilted?
  • Does this transition show the logical progression of the plot or argument? Does it leave a gap the reader has to bridge? How can I transition better?
  • Does this element of the book support or erode my theme?

Some of these questions are similar to those you ask in a developmental edit. The difference is that in a substantive edit you’re focusing on smaller things—smaller errors and smaller opportunities. These small things are the ones that take your manuscript from being good to being excellent.

Other Editorial Services

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Before You Hire an Editor, Know What You Need

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Before you hire a freelance editor, you need to decide what type of editing you want right now. It’s also good to know what types of editing you’re going to want in the future; sometimes you can work with the same editor through the whole project, or you can at least work with people your editor refers you to.

You need to know what type of editing you need because editors are not wizards. You can’t take a book you think isn’t quite there, hand it off to an editor, and get it magicked into complete perfection. Editors can help you improve your writing and hone your craft, but they can’t force absolute quality on you (even if they could, it wouldn’t really be your book afterward). The clearer you can be about the type of help you want, the better an editor can help you. An editor cannot effectively edit everything from commas to character arcs all in one go. That takes multiple passes over a manuscript, and you, the author, should be revising after each pass to make sure the piece stays true to what you want it to be.

Writing a story or nonfiction piece means creating a path from beginning to end, and ideally that path will have scenic vistas along the way. Editing involves trying to make that path clear and enjoyable for your reader. If you take the path-making metaphor a bit farther, you’ll understand why you can’t have someone do story-level developmental editing and sentence-level copyediting at the same time. You don’t hire a lumberjack to pull weeds; you don’t hire a golf-course manicurist to move massive boulders. Understand the task you want to hire out so you can hire the right person.

Developmental Editing (Story Editing)

Developmental editing is large-scale editing. In this type of editing the editor makes sure there are no redwoods blocking the path you’re trying to create for the reader. It also includes pointing out any opportunities you may have missed. Perhaps you could have pulled more tension out of a character’s relationship; maybe you ignored an argument your opponents will make; then again, maybe you just have a big plot hole or lapse in logic. A developmental edit involves multiple editorial passes and a lot of editor–author interaction to hone and develop your plot or argument, tone, characterization, and more. This is the lumberjack-and-boulder-removal level of editing. If a developmental editor also tried to do copyediting along the way, he or she could easily miss some uncharacteristic dialogue because he or she was more focused on the punctuation of a nonrestrictive clause.

Learn more about developmental editing from this Looseleaf blog post. Another editing service that is related to developmental editing is the manuscript evaluation or critique.

Substantive Editing (Line Editing)

Substantive editing goes into more fine-tuning than moving boulders: it’s more like clearing the path of hedges and shrubbery and making sure it’s as direct as possible. Substantive edits cover organization, logical flow, word choice, internal consistency, and more. It can go as big as reordering paragraphs and as fine as tweaking a word to sustain your tone. Often a substantive edit can include a lot of copyediting because it is more sentence- and word-based than developmental editing. However, it should not be confused with a true copyedit. Substantive editing involves a lot of tweaking, reordering, and decision-making from the author. By the time the edit is done you’ll have changed a lot of text, and any time you make lots of changes you need to go back and make sure the details of those changes are clear.

Learn more about substantive editing from this Looseleaf blog post.

Copyediting

Copyediting looks at the potholes and pebbles along a manuscript’s path. The editor shifts word and punctuation debris so readers won’t twist their ankles while enjoying your story. Everything gets edited for grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, consistency, and adherence to your chosen citation format (this could be everything from the color of your characters’ eyes to how you capitalize certain words and phrases). Sometimes copyediting isn’t necessarily a right-or-wrong type of thing. There are some language scenarios in which you’ll have more that one option. It’s a copyeditor’s job to make sure you remain consistent in which option you choose.

Learn more about copyediting from this Looseleaf blog post.

Proofreading

Proofreading is a lot like copyediting in that it’s concerned with potholes and pebbles. However, a proofread is performed on the final version of a publication. It should always be done by someone who hasn’t previously edited your work (Looseleaf uses some trusted subcontractors to do the proofreading on projects I’ve already edited). The proofreader catches last-minute errors and items that you, the author, would change yourself if you had your attention drawn to them. Proofreaders also catch formatting errors like over-spaced lines, misplaced hyphens, widows and orphans, word stacks, and inconsistent typeface use. Anything that will disrupt the reader’s final experience gets caught during proofreading.

Learn more about proofreading from this Looseleaf blog post.

An Editorial Relationship

If you want a long-term working relationship with a particular editor, make sure you can get all the types of editing you’re going to need from that editor or from professional acquaintances of that editor. By working with one individual or a collection of close contacts, you’ll be better able to retain your vision and voice across the different stages of editing. For example, when I hire out final proofreading on projects I’ve edited, I review the proofreader’s changes to make sure they don’t go back on anything the author and I have previously talked about. This helps retain the author’s intentions and goals for the project.

Before you hire, know what you want. You’ll be happier with your final product and you’ll save a lot of negotiation with your editor if you can articulate what it is you want him or her to do.

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