Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers by Scott Norton

In developmental editing, an editor works with an author to shape the structure and content of a manuscript. This can start early in the writing process, or it might begin once a draft of the manuscript is finished. Developmental editing is done more often with non-fiction books, where the emphasis is on the author’s subject matter expertise rather than writing expertise, and it is generally done to improve the book’s quality and effectiveness at reaching its target readership.

I think developmental editing is the most difficult, although potentially the most rewarding, form of editing. It takes insight and creativity to find a theme or a narrative thread that will make the facts come alive. And it takes the greatest tact and communication with the author.

Contents

1. Concept: Shaping the proposal
2. Content: Assessing potential
3. Thesis: Finding the hook
4. Narrative: Tailoring the timeline
5. Exposition: Deploying the argument
6. Plan: Drafting a blueprint
7. Rhythm: Setting the pace
8. Transitions: Filling in the blanks
9. Style: Training the voice
10. Display: Dressing up the text

Scott Norton takes a lot of the guesswork out of this process by breaking it into separate tasks (see the contents listed in the sidebar). Each chapter has a case history to demonstrate the techniques being discussed. Structure is a constant theme, and the case studies typically use the initial and revised table of contents as a starting point for the editing. There’s valuable discussion on deciding how to approach the material, how to present it, what aspects to emphasize, and whether to order material according to a timeline or by following an argument.

The detailed case histories make the book come alive. Each case history is developed as the chapter progresses, and it shows the table of contents of a manuscript before and after editing, which neatly summarizes the changes. Although the author-editor relationship doesn’t get a chapter of its own, the case histories illustrate a variety of ways this can go.

At a little over 200 pages, the book isn’t unmanageably long, and it’s an attractively published small paperback that you can keep as a reference book without breaking your bookshelf. The further reading section at the end is a thoughtful collection of other good books on related topics with a short description of what each book offers.

Related reading

This article by John McPhee on structure discusses the choice between chronology and theme and describes how stuck a writer can get without a framework.

Reviewed from my own copy of the book.

Insurance for freelance editors: WorkSafeBC

Keep your home office ergonomic.
Photo by Janet 59. Some rights reserved.

As a freelancer, you may be without a safety net if you lose your ability to work—especially if you don’t have a spouse with employee benefits. Well, here’s a start: in BC, you can opt for voluntary WorkSafeBC coverage. Yes, editing is a very safe job, but there’s still a risk of developing repetitive strain injuries, or neck and back problems.

Personal optional protection

WorkSafeBC offers personal optional protection for self-employed people. This will cover your lost income and pay your medical expenses if you are injured in your work. You can apply to cover from $1,500 to $6,492 of monthly gross salary, and because of the low workplace risk for editors, coverage is not expensive. Editors fall into rate class 762043: Writing, Publishing, or Map Production (no printing). The rate for this classification is $.16 per $100 of coverage (for 2021), so to cover a gross salary of $2,500 per month, the annual premium will be $48.

Incorporated businesses

You can’t apply for coverage if your business is incorporated; only the owners of proprietorships and partnerships are eligible (see item 12 on the application form).

Limitation of legal action

If you opt for WorkSafeBC coverage, you might be limiting your right to sue your client if you are injured on the job (see item 11 on the application form). This is the basic term of the “compensation bargain” behind mandatory worker coverage programs. The positive side is that some clients prefer to deal with contractors who have WCB insurance.

How to register

You can apply for personal optional protection online. There’s also a registration form you can fill out and send in.

Further reading

• WorkSafeBC classification and rate search page
• Wikipedia: Workers’ compensation
• Workers Compensation Act

The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts into Words by Arthur Plotnik

There’s an expression in Dutch: Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg. It translates approximately as, “Why don’t you just act normal? That’s already strange enough.” And how right the Dutch are: rhetorical flourishes, weak jokes, arty effects, obscure language, and the breezy style that Strunk and White warned against are all reasons to toss a book over your shoulder. But, taken too much to heart, won’t this keep-it-normal philosophy result in Soviet-cell-block-grey writing? The literary equivalent of overcooked cabbage and brown rice without salt may not get thrown across the room, but it will end up gathering dust under the bed.

Somewhere between these two extremes is writing that catches attention without bolting on superfluous ornaments. The Elements of Expression tells you how to use concrete images and unfamiliar combinations of words to produce writing that is fresh and expressive and brings delight to the reader. Arthur Plotnik provides techniques for injecting force and power into your writing, and suggests a variety of places, from rap music to Shakespeare, to find new language. Most importantly, he tells you how to make this new language your own.

Don’t waste time finding your single real voice. We rarely find our real voice . . . Our voice can be a new voice—or several—that we make real, a voice in harmony with our roots but capable of expressing the full flower of the evolving self. Like everything that breaks from the ordinary, the new voice entails risks, apprehensions, missteps. These are reasonable costs of liberation.

I expected this to be a book about writing, so the chapter on oral presentation was a delightful added bonus. We’ve all been tortured by the People Who Should Be Banned from Presenting (the flaunters of their unpreparedness: “Prepare? Do gods prepare?”). In keeping with the theme of adding expressiveness, Plotnik pleads for effective voice modulation. In the past, the baby-talk sound of the kindergarten teacher who traversed an entire octave in one word and the android-like delivery of newscasters made me think that the best modulation is the one that nobody notices (“just act normal . . .”), but when you’re a small figure on a distant stage, the audience needs more animation than you would use when speaking face to face. Plotnik tells you how to use volume, tempo, and phrasing to make your presentation sing. He finishes with his own checklist of methods for reducing the terror of public speaking (bring a marked text and an extra copy).

As always, Plotnik is a joy to read. He shares his secrets generously, and he empathizes with the yearning for effective expression that all writers, however casual, feel.

Other books by Arthur Plotnik

Better than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives (review)
Spunk & Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style (review)
Elements of Editing: A Modern Guide for Editors & Journalists
The Elements of Authorship (review)

Reviewed from my own copy of the book.

The Elements of Authorship by Arthur Plotnik

Arthur Plotnik is always fun to read. In this combination of manual and memoir, he presents the ins and outs of the world of writing—and he’s done it all: studying at the Iowa writers’ workshop, journalism, commercial writing, editing a magazine, you name it. If you’re committed to being a writer, this is your guide to the landscape of the trade.

The contents

• Studying to write—the highlights of the writers workshops
• Lessons to be learned from journalism
• Writing full-time
• Writing at home
• Working as a commercial writer
• How to please editors
• The personal lives of writers
• Getting published (“The Pit and the Pinnacle”)
• Style and how to write well
• Finances of writing and contracts
• Being a poet
• Technical considerations
• Becoming obsolete

Every so often a newspaper reports on the “fecal dust” that blows through certain cities from the open latrines of shanty-towns. The imagery sticks in one’s mind, with that piercing word fecal and the unsettling notion of airborne waste. We thank heaven we don’t breathe it, yet day and night we are assailed by toxic drivel from office, media, and motor-mouthed acquaintances. Choked on this fecal verbiage, people turn to the literary word for refreshment.

For writers, the listener’s time is always suspended until the words can gather force. One attraction of writing is this magical opportunity to rummage for the bon mot or perfect squelch or ultimate love call while the world stands frozen. And so the writer struggles with words, chooses them with care, arranges them to refresh the listener’s mind and ear, then heaves them out and shops for better words and rearranges them for hours, days, months, until nothing can be added, excluded, or shifted to make them more refreshing, more stimulating. But when the words are uncorked in print, the effect is instantaneous: “By God, that’s what I would have said if I’d had a year to think about it!”

—“What Readers Want”

Reviewed from a library copy of the book.

When to capitalize “the”

I find capitalization one of the trickier areas of copy editing. As you try to be consistent, it’s easy to slide down a slippery slope of increasing capitalization until your document looks like the product of a Victorian letter writer.

One question that causes a lot of problems is the question of capitalizing the definite article with proper nouns. Should you write “he went to The University of British Columbia” or “to the University of British Columbia”? Is the article part of their name?

Luckily the style guides have some helpful advice. The Canadian Press Stylebook, 16th ed., has a useful entry on page 287, and The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed., also deals with this topic.

Titles of works starting with “the”

In general, include the article and capitalize it:
The Taming of the Shrew
“The Lottery”

For periodicals, Chicago suggests lowercasing the article and not italicizing it, even if it is part of the official title: the New Yorker.

Canadian Press style capitalizes “the” when it is part of the name: The New Yorker (no italics because this is a newspaper style), but it uses a lowercase article for names of almanacs, the Bible, dictionaries, directories, handbooks, and so on.

Sometimes you can drop a leading “a” “an” or ”the” in a book title if it doesn’t fit the syntax of the sentence (CMOS 8.169):
Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew

“The” before a proper noun

The article is almost always lowercased:
the Supreme Court
the Panama Canal
the Constitution
the Beatles
the University of British Columbia

Some specific types of proper nouns

• Places

  Lowercase the article except in a city name that contains “the” (CMOS 8.45):
  the Netherlands
  The Hague

• Institutions and companies

  Chicago says that a “the” preceding the name, even if it’s part of the official name, is lowercased in running text (CMOS 8.68).
  the University of Chicago

• Associations and unions

  Same again: lowercase “the” even if it’s part of the official name (CMOS 8.70).
  the League of Women Voters

Changes in capitalization styles

These are recommendations from two specific style guides. Organizations have their own house styles for capitalization that may deviate from the guidelines I’ve quoted here, so check your house style.