Dipping Your Toe into Developmental Editing
One of the best ways to dip your toe into the developmental editing waters is by beta reading. This is basically reading a manuscript and responding to it: where you were confused, where you lost interest, what character you enjoyed the most.
How to Beta Read
When you’re doing a beta read, you’re not trying to diagnose the manuscript’s problems (“A is happening because of B”) because if you’re just starting out you don’t have the skillset. You’re just sharing what you noticed: “Murgatroyd has a wife in Chapters 2, 4, and 6, but in Chapter 15, he’s single, with no mention of what happened to his wife” or “I found my attention flagging in Chapters 10 through 16.”
It’s up to the author to figure out what to do about that; your job is just to point it out. It’s not rocket science, but it’s an extremely helpful service for authors.
Authors seeking beta readers could be writing fiction or nonfiction (though there seem to be more novelists who seek beta readers than NF writers).
Beta reading can be free or paid (some people will argue, “No, not, if it’s paid, that’s critique!” but it’s all essentially the same thing).
Why You Should Try Beta Reading
Doing a bit of beta reading is a good way to get a feel for what DE is because it’s about paying close attention to a manuscript, yet distancing yourself enough from it to be able to say, “Gee, I hate this protagonist right now but I’m apparently supposed to love him? What is going on here?”
Privately you can try working out why the problems are arising: “Just when I was getting interested in what was happening to Amy, I had to wade through ten pages of backstory about Tim. Maybe the author shouldn’t include ten pages of backstory about Tim.”
I say “privately” because in beta reading, it’s not our job (and it’s not desirable) for us to say to the author, “Don’t include those ten pages of backstory about Tim.” Our role is just to say, “Just when I was getting interested in what happened to Amy . . . .”
When you’re a DE, then you can say, “Delete those ten pages of backstory about Tim.”
