Expect much more from editing

The developmental editing process delivers three core benefits you might otherwise miss.

You’re nearing the end of an arduous process. The thought leadership project you initiated many months ago is almost complete. The research is done. You’ve got a 40-slide deck with all the results. You have a draft manuscript, perhaps in its fifth or tenth version—one that many stakeholders have reviewed and commented on. You even have a scheduled launch date for publication.

On a group call, someone throws this out: “We should have this edited. Let’s bring in an editor.” There is general agreement; yes, of course, time for editing. Now what?

Let the confusion begin.

Low Expectations?

At this stage, what are the expectations? They are, in fact, likely to be all over the place. You may hear different phrases. The editor should “clean it up.” Or perhaps “make it sing.” Sometimes the request is to “take a look.”

Often the focus is on copyediting: making sure that such matters as capitalization, commas, and punctuation are handled consistently. This is surely a useful and necessary form of editing (as far as it goes).

Others may expect line editing, the process of going through the text line by line. And this too is useful, as a good line editor will reduce repetition, find more economical ways of phrasing, and improve the clarity of points that may otherwise appear obscure or ambiguous.

But these typical forms of editing, while valuable, can take a manuscript only so far. Ideally, your expectations should be much higher. This is where the less-understood term “developmental editing” comes in. This much more intensive form has three primary benefits for the quality of any thought leadership outcome.

1.    It means you are drawing on expertise in idea development from the start. This probably makes the term much clearer: you are engaging with someone who has a deep sense of how ideas are developed over time—an “idea partner” if you will. You may even initiate conversations when all you have is an idea you more or less thought of in the shower.

The right editor will have a strong sense of whether an idea sounds at all original. Does it hold together; is it at all counterintuitive; how can it be shaped; does it sound likely to spur reflection and action? Who really is the target audience, and what is the intended goal?

In short, such conversations are part of an editorial process that will ensure your project has the impact you are seeking when you start. Don’t put them off.

2.    It means you have a reader in the room at all times. Every thought leadership project has a lot of stakeholders. They all have something in mind, stated or unstated, regarding the outcome. But how many projects regularly put The Unknown Reader (or Listener) at the center?

An experienced editor serves as the proxy for the reader who doesn’t know who you are, may know little about your organization, and is simply evaluating the content for the value of the idea, the research, and the recommendations. And reading skeptically at that. So you want a person at your side who sees what you are trying to do through the lenses of an interested outsider.

Critically, however, you also want someone who understands and respects your stakeholder environment. A clear understanding of the boundaries, constraints, and broad expectations is all part of an effective developmental editing process.

3.    It means you relentlessly push for the highest quality—even when the pressure is on to “be done.”

As the process continues, you’ll see the ideas really developing. You may be working closely with the editor, pushing drafts back and forth over a period of months, co-creating the final manuscript. Inevitably in this process, the experienced editor will ask questions that you might like to avoid—but that are essential to a high-quality outcome.

“Why do we need this intro to run on for five pages? Let’s cut it, sharply.”

“Do we really want 27 graphs? I know you worked hard on them, but let’s figure out which ones are essential.”

“Can we include a few examples that are beyond the ‘usual suspects’? I have a couple of possibilities to suggest.”

Trust and Collaboration

What makes it possible for this part of the process to work? First, you’ve established the relationship, and thus the trust, from the beginning. And second, the whole process has been entirely collaborative.

To be sure, this is a more demanding way to do things than simply bringing in someone to clean it up, make it sing, or take a look at the very end. But the easier way out is rarely the better way.

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