Editorial assessment
An editorial assessment, with editorial letter, is the first stage of the editing process. At this point, the writer had completed their manuscript to the best of their self-editing abilities, following self-editing techniques, and it is assumed that, from the point of delivery, the writer is not going to be making "last minute changes" to the manuscript that will otherwise interfere with the editing process.
The editorial assessment is followed by a global revision by the author, which in turn is followed by a developmental edit by the same editor who did the editorial assessment.
This is also called a reader evaluation or manuscript evaluation by other editors / editing service companies / publishers. Sometimes, the process of writing an editorial letter is combined with a developmental edit in what is referred to as a "content edit" or "substantive edit". For Story Perfect Editing Services, the first revision of the Budget Edit combines editorial assessment and developmental edit in one step.
Contents
PROCEDURE
- Read the entire manuscript, without making any markings
- Make notes as your proceed, based on the objectives
- Use your notes to analyze the manuscript and prepare an editorial assessment letter
OBJECTIVE
The objective of an editorial assessment is to provide global feedback for the author to perform broad revision, in the form of an editorial letter.
Assumptions:
- The author is open to broad changes to the manuscript encompassing character, plot, scene sequences, voice, point of view choice and, should it be justified, premise and overall execution
- This will be followed by one or more developmental edits and hence, suggestions for rewrites are not aimed at a final product
- The author will write a new draft based on the editorial assessment, not just a revision. Entire scenes will be deleted / added / changed where justified; the same can be said about characters, plots, settings, and dialogues
Global vs. local feedback
Global feedback requires reading the entire manuscript and knowing how the sum of all parts applies to each individual part. Local feedback on the other hand does not require the context of the whole.
In practice, effective local feedback (i.e. on a given scene or part of a scene) requires understanding the global perspective. This is why an editorial assessment, which allows you to analyze the story from a global perspective, is a prerequisite to a developmental edit, where comments are delivered in-line and often local to a part of a scene.
Although it is tempting, it's imperative during an editorial assessment to refrain from making too many scene-specific notes as you are reading the manuscript during the editorial assessment. Every time you stop to write down notes, it slows your overall pace and thus limits the effectiveness of your global perspective. Remember that you are going to be going over the entire manuscript a second time in detail, making notes in place to follow up further, in a more local assessment.
Editorial letter
Your goal in writing an editorial letter is to provide both an assessment of the effectiveness of the manuscript on its target audience, and a revision road map for the author to make global changes to improve the effectiveness. A secondary goal is to prepare the author for the developmental edit pass, wherein you will go over the revised manuscript and provide local feedback that further refines your approach in the editorial letter.
You write the editorial letter after you have read the manuscript and made notes, following the checklist of criterion and according to the template to ensure full rigor in your assessment. In form, this is similar to a critical book review and a book report, except you will take this a step further, providing prescriptive feedback.
You must justify all your arguments, either with page references or summary examples, since you are making an argument and if you wish the author to take your feedback constructively, it's important they can understand why you're making any given point. "Your protagonist's persistent nagging is annoying," or "The story dragged in many spots," are weak comments compared to, "Your protagonist's behavior wasn't consistent, given that in scenes X, Y, and Z, they showed strong self-will and proactivity, then in scene W and V, they collapsed into a bout of self-pity." The point is: back up, and justify with specifics.
This will take some time to think about, as it should. You goal is to:
- Read and collect information in the form of notes, making page number references for your later reference
- Reflect and analyze, according to the checklist
- Write your report, according to the template, using your notes to fill in references
- Revise your report with further justifications
Checklist
For the editorial assessment, you want to be considering:
- Premise
- Execution
- Target audience
- Comparative titles and comparative tropes
- Plot
- Subplots
- Characterization
- Dialogue
- Motivation
- Character relevance
- Narration
- Point of View
- Voice
- Theme
- Character-theme interplay
- Scene Execution
- Scene relevance
- Tension
- Structure
- Craft
- Repetitive writing habits
- Bulk editing issues
- Styles and technique
TIME EXPECTATIONS
You should read the manuscript at slightly quicker a pace than you'd do a proofread, the same speed at which you'd read a novel. You should be reading slow enough to pick up on the construction of sentences, phrasing, word choice, and to think about the story, themes, plot, and characterization that's unfolding as you read. You should be stopping to make notes, with the page number, for later reference, but these notes should be referential (i.e. "p128, another example of use of long homogeneous sentences"; p256, strange break in voice through use of short choppy sentences, reads like thriller here) and not prescriptive (i.e. "p128 paragraph 3, this really needs work and isn't fleshed out, think it might need setting to be clearly established).
You should not be stopping to think about how to fix or remedy sentences or phrases which irritate you (as you would during a developmental edit).
With regard to these factors, in a standard Times New Roman 12pt double spaced manuscript (~340 words / page), you should get through about 15-20pp/hour (equivalently, 5100-6800 words/hour). While it is possible that some manuscripts require a lot more work, keep in mind that this is for the developmental edit and hence if you are stopping to make too many notes along the way then you are likely overloading the editorial letter.
Preparing your editorial assessment letter takes about 2 hour for every 20k of manuscript. This time accounts for the time required to go over your notes and convert them to the template, then to add in your references and check back in the manuscript (copying and pasting citations where necessary).
TEMPLATE
COPY AND PASTE THIS INTO A WORD DOCUMENT, then customize
Dear [author],
[A custom paragraph summarizing your experience of the manuscript, with a focus on what you enjoyed.] [A paragraph about where you see the manuscript fitting with other present works and authors. You will have to do some searching on Amazon.com to pin down a few titles / authors who are doing similar things, and you will want to read some reviews to get a sense of overall what target readers enjoy.]
STRENGTHS
[Focus on the strengths of the manuscript. Our goal is to present this in the "sandwich method", delivering positive feedback, then potentially negative (but critically phrased), then ending on positive (the road map for revision). The purpose of this format is to encourage optimal receptivity from the author; keep in mind you are critiquing something they have worked hard on, likely over multiple drafts, and we want to be sensitive of this in critiquing. Opening with a compliment and focusing on the strengths helps a great deal. However, it also helps you distill what value this manuscript has to front load in the assessment the "ideal picture" of what this manuscript promises to be by the end of the production process. This is not sugarcoating; rather, it's a process of shining light on the diamonds so that the rough can be stripped away.]
WEAKNESSES
[Ensure you open this with a segue away from the STRENGTHS section. For example, "With all this in mind, let's turn to how we can make that potential shine to the fullest. Here are the things I found stood out to me as needing the most attention in a rewrite:"]
[Deliver your list of issues. You can format this however you'd like, but bullet or numbered lists are great. I recommend you use the criterion of the editing checklist above to build your sections as a guide (keeping only the relevant ones of course). You can also use sub-headers to break up sections, and in fact you should since it helps the author make an itinerary for their next step of rewriting.]
SUGGESTIONS
[Segue from the weaknesses section, the goal being to "build up" from the critical feedback you just delivered. For example, "Okay, now that we laid this all out on the table, I've come up with some suggestions for you, which you can use as a road map for your revision."]
[Lay out your suggestions. Use the same sub-header format you used in the WEAKNESSES section above, and within each section, break that down further with bullet points to list your suggestions. Your goal here is to build on each point. A good analogy is: imagine the WEAKNESSES is the diagnosis. This section is the prescription. Give the author a plan of attack. What's VERY important, however, is to make sure you don't box them in. Make sure your comments are suggestions, i.e. "Something like XX would work well, but if you don't like this idea, just make sure you address issue YY in whatever you come up with.]
NEXT STEPS
[This is your closing section for the author. Tell them about the process ahead. This is important because the author new to this process might feel overwhelmed by everything you just told them, particularly, that they have to nail everything in one go. In this section, you can let them know that they should be writing another draft, and when it's due back to you, invite them to ask any questions if they need clarification or want to discuss further, AND (important) that you will be going over their revision with a developmental edit to push further on all the points in this assessment.]
