How to know when your story is ready for a developmental edit

Overturned Scrabble tiles, with five tiles in the middle face-up, reading: R E A D Y

I've sometimes had writers ask me when to send their work off for a developmental edit, so I thought this might be useful to address here.

As a developmental edit looks at the big-picture elements of a story—plot, characterisation, narrative arc, and so forth—this can feel tricky. I usually say that writers should have reached the point where they feel they can’t do any more with the story on their own. In other words, at least two drafts have been written and revised, and the writer can no longer see the woods for the trees, so to speak.

If you’ve written three (or even six) drafts and still have lots of great ideas for how to strengthen your story’s structure, and/or maybe you’re still adding to the characters and working out which subplots to include, you’d be better off continuing to work on the story before sending it for developmental editing. This will allow your story more time and space to grow to fit your creative vision. It also ensures that your editor will be working on a complete and finished novel so they won’t be providing you with suggestions you could have come up with yourself (such as how you might round out a character, when you already had notes written to yourself on how you’d do that). In other words, waiting until you’ve reached the point of no longer feeling you can do anything more with the manuscript on your own will allow you to get the most from your editor. 

Manuscripts that have been sent to literary agents/publishing houses

Another way you might know your story is ready for a developmental edit is if you’ve written and revised it to the best of your ability and, feeling fairly happy with it, sent it out to numerous agents/publishers and never managed to interest anyone. This is when a second set of eyes can be really helpful. Of course, as agents and publishers can take a while to reply to authors, I wouldn’t recommend this route until you’ve contacted at least a couple dozen of them and waited beyond their stated response times. (Literary agents and traditional publishers are busy people!)

In these cases, a manuscript critique might be the most helpful. (A manuscript critique is like a mini-developmental edit, with broader comments on story elements given in the form of a report.)

Of course, if you’re still writing the story and find yourself getting stuck, then help is available! This is when I’d usually recommend coaching to an author.