Developmental Editing – A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) - Hardcover

Norton, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226595145 ISBN 13: 9780226595146

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2009

Synopsis

Editing is a tricky business. It requires analytical flair and creative panache, the patience of a saint and the vision of a writer. Transforming a manuscript into a book that edifies, inspires, and sells? That's the job of the developmental editor, whose desk is the first stop for many manuscripts on the road to bookdom - a route ably mapped out in the pages of "Developmental Editing". Scott Norton has worked with a diverse range of authors, editors, and publishers, and his handbook provides an approach to developmental editing that is logical, collaborative, humorous, and realistic. He starts with the core tasks of shaping the proposal, finding the hook, and building the narrative or argument and then turns to the hard work of executing the plan and establishing a style. "Developmental Editing" includes detailed case studies and offers practical advice on becoming a developmental editor, adapting sophisticated fiction techniques to nonfiction writing, and earning higher fees as a freelance copyeditor. And perhaps most important, Norton's book equips authors with the tools they need to reach their audiences.

About this title

About the Author

Scott Norton is director of editing, design, and production at the University of California Press.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Developmental Editing

A HANDBOOK FOR FREELANCERS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHERSBy Scott Norton

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Copyright © 2009 The University of Chicago
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-59514-6

Contents

Preface.............................................................ixIntroduction........................................................1What Developmental Editing Is.......................................1Whom This Book Is For...............................................2What This Book Covers...............................................3Some Ground Rules...................................................51 * Concept: Shaping the Proposal...................................9Author Profile: The Veteran.........................................10Client Profile: The Agent...........................................11Assignment: The Proposal with Too Many Concepts.....................12Locate the Concept..................................................14Profile the Audience................................................18Evaluate Market Potential...........................................20Bring the Vision into Focus.........................................222 * Content: Assessing Potential....................................27Author Profile: The First-Timer.....................................28Client Profile: The Big Trade House.................................29Assignment: The Tome with Too Many Subjects.........................30Size Up the Author..................................................31Size Up the Publisher...............................................33Size Up the DE......................................................35Create a Content Summary............................................39Find the Main Subject...............................................423 * Thesis: Finding the Hook........................................48Author Profile: The Coauthors.......................................48Client Profile: The Small Trade House...............................50Assignment: The Study with Too Many Theses..........................51Cull Theses from Topics.............................................52Beware of the Rehash................................................55Choose the Main Thesis..............................................58Create a Working Title..............................................624 * Narrative: Tailoring the Timeline...............................68Author Profile: The Historian.......................................68Client Profile: The Copublisher.....................................70Assignment: The Sprawling Saga......................................71Untangle Timelines from Arguments...................................72Find the Main Timelines.............................................74Brainstorm Timeline Strategies......................................76Compose the New Timeline............................................80Finetune the Timeline...............................................81Restore Bits of Argument............................................855 * Exposition: Deploying the Argument..............................91Author Profile: The Theorist........................................92Client Profile: The University Press................................93Assignment: The Theory with Too Many Tangents.......................94Untangle Arguments from Timelines...................................95Find the Main Arguments.............................................98Brainstorm Argument Strategies......................................101Compose the New Argument............................................103Finetune the Argument...............................................105Restore Bits of Timeline............................................1076 * Plan: Drafting a Blueprint......................................112Write Up the Plan...................................................113Compose Chapter Theses..............................................119Intervene Strategically.............................................1227 * Rhythm: Setting the Pace........................................123Author Profile: The Sole Authority..................................123Client Profile: The Regional House..................................125Assignment: The Local History Turned Personal.......................126Rearrange the Furniture.............................................127Draft New Passages..................................................130Balance Chapter Weights.............................................132Edit for Pace.......................................................1358 * Transitions: Filling in the Blanks..............................142Author Profile: The Dead Author.....................................142Client Profile: The Self-Publisher..................................144Assignment: The Memoir with Lapses..................................145Create Opening Transitions..........................................146Create Closing Transitions..........................................149Draw Conclusions....................................................151Place Those Conclusions.............................................1549 * Style: Training the Voice.......................................158Author Profile: The Journalist......................................159Client Profile: The Book Packager...................................160Assignment: The Story with Too Many Voices..........................162Set the Tone........................................................164Parse the Rhetoric..................................................167Master Abstraction..................................................175Gauge the Ironies...................................................178Harmonize the Voices................................................18210 * Display: Dressing Up the Text..................................187Author Profile: The Author-for-Hire.................................188Client Profile: The Trade Reference House...........................189Assignment: The Guidebook with Poor Signage.........................191Consider Subheads...................................................192Consider Epigraphs..................................................197Draft an Art Plan...................................................201Illustrate Concepts.................................................204Visualize Data......................................................207Test-Drive Maps.....................................................212Add Lagniappe.......................................................215Afterword...........................................................221Further Reading.....................................................223Acknowledgments.....................................................229Index...............................................................231

Chapter One

CONCEPT

Shaping the Proposal

In today's world, crafting a sound proposal is the indispensable first stage in the process of publishing a book. Regardless of whether the manuscript has already been written or is only a gleam in the author's eye, publishers want to see a crisp proposal that clearly conveys the book's central concept and demonstrates how that concept will appeal to its target audience. For many authors, however, summarizing in a few pages a subject that represents years of research or personal experience can be a daunting exercise. DEs can help authors to find their central concepts, bring them into focus, and then shape them into proposals that will both sell their concepts and serve as useful blueprints for their entire manuscripts.

In this chapter, we consider how to choose a broad main concept before a manuscript has been written. This situation is ideal, because a vision statement evoking that concept can guide the author in choosing content and, eventually, closing in on a narrower central thesis. In the next chapter, we will hunt for a concept in a text that has already been drafted. In that case, a proposal will need to be developed retroactively for submission to prospective publishers.

Our case study takes us into the fast-paced world of agented trade publishing, where proposals often receive more attention than the manuscripts they eventually beget. It is the proposal that secures the royalty advances from which agents draw their commissions. Some agents are skillful at developing proposals, and a few-as in our story-engage professional DEs to do this important work. But the glut of submissions requires that they put most proposals aside if they're not already shipshape, so authors do well to consider hiring a DE on their own before shopping a proposal around to agents.

Author Profile: The Veteran

Sometimes even experienced authors need help in shaping a proposal. Veterans may have several published books under their belts, but if they're writing about a new subject, for a new audience, or with a broad, synthetic perspective on a subject they've previously treated more narrowly, they can lose focus. Historians adept at interweaving the narratives of dozens of characters over centuries can become flummoxed by their own autobiographies; journalists who have covered political corruption fairly for decades may find that a particular scandal strikes a nerve, causing them to lose their reportorial balance. Often, an author whose previous book has been well received will be pressured to come up with a new project quickly and will dash off a sloppy proposal. Some of the worst books written are those that follow lauded debuts: the author has poured into the first book insights gleaned over decades of preparation, leaving no mature material for a quick second book.

Brace Phillips was aware of the pitfalls of proposal writing. During his three decades as pastor of Glad Tidings Free Evangelical Church in Thousand Hills, Kentucky, he'd produced several careful studies on narrow points of Christian doctrine. His day job was filled with the woes of his congregants: illnesses, infidelities, sorrows over children gone gay or drug-addicted or pregnant out of wedlock. But now he was committed to writing a big trade book, and it promised to be a bestseller-not because he was any great shakes, but because one of his parishioners had gotten himself elected to the White House. Nearly every day, the president implied that his political views had been nurtured by his religious upbringing, as if he had learned his bloodthirstiness and greed from the pulpit of Glad Tidings. But Brace had known the president when he was still wet behind the ears-had, in fact, baptized him in the Chattahootchienooga River. If anyone could call the leader of the free world on his hypocrisy, it was Brace.

Recently, the Lord had shown Brace that the success of his famous, if truant, parishioner would give him a national platform for speaking out on any issue he chose. The revelation had come in the form of a phone call from a publishing agent up in New York. But which message should he bring to the people? The agent had rejected his first draft proposal, saying that he was "trying to accomplish too much in one book." And she was right. He wanted to restore the separation of church and state so that sins like abortion, homosexuality, and drug use would be recognized as moral choices, not legal mandates. And he especially wanted to expose preachers of the so-called prosperity gospel as nothing less than pyramid schemers. If anything got Jesus steamed, it was judging others for their sins and making money on God. These church leaders of the Religious Right, and the politicians whose elections they secured term after term, were nothing but modern-day Pharisees.

The agent said she'd consult an editor with his proposal. Brace wasn't sure what to expect from this consultation, but he recognized that he needed help. Once the book was published, Brace would need even more help to deal with the media blitz: after years of welcome obscurity, he'd no doubt be interviewed on every television and radio network. He reckoned himself good talking-head material, if he did say so himself: handsome, gregarious, witty-and humble, as the old joke went. In the meantime, he waited and prayed.

Client Profile: The Agent

Some authors are disinclined to trust agents. Why pay a commission to someone for brokering a deal that the author can surely make herself? If you've ever sold a house without engaging a Realtor, or gone to traffic court as your own lawyer, you know the answer: an agent is an expert guide in an impenetrable thicket of legalities. Because an agent's commission is tied to the size of the author's advance on royalties, the agent is sure to push for the largest advance and the best royalty deal; the better ones will also fight for larger print runs, bigger marketing budgets, and control over the design of cover and marketing materials. For these reasons, you'd think that agents would be anathema among publishers-but they're not. Although agents do have a tendency to raise the level of competition for desirable books, they save publishers many headaches by educating their authors about the business of publishing. The better agents develop reputations for literary taste, subject expertise, and author management: to use the argot of Hollywood, they are talent scouts, casting directors, and producers rolled into one.

During her thirty years in New York, Jenny Wishler had seen the independent houses gobbled up by the media giants, and those in turn swallowed up by international conglomerates. She had watched hundreds, if not thousands, of classic titles go out of print because their sales had dropped below unreasonably high thresholds. These days, Jenny could hardly afford to take on a manuscript with sales potential of fewer than 20,000 copies in hardcover. Occasionally, she did pro bono work in academic publishing, but too many of her days were spent dressing up perfectly good books with movie options or plans to cross-market the books with a parent company's other products.

For these reasons, the Brace Phillips book was an opportunity not to be missed. The inside scoop from a whistleblower in the top ranks of the Christian Right-this project had the dual advantage of salability and moral integrity. Unfortunately, the author could not decide which book he wanted to write, and other commitments left Jenny with no time to coach him through the process of birthing a healthy book concept. She was already spending her nights and weekends on the Pynchon tell-all autobiography. So she flipped through her Rolodex looking for a DE who could empathize with an author of liberal political values and conservative moral views. On the last index card, she came to Bud Zallis. A lapsed Catholic living in free-thinking San Francisco, Bud could be counted on to engage with this manuscript fully.

Assignment: The Proposal with Too Many Concepts

Bud Zallis was an atheist who understood the desire to believe. As an editor, he was always looking for patterns of meaning in life's torrent of random events. Moreover, because his bread-and-butter client was Haphazard Grace-the San Francisco-based inspirational division of Haphazard House, the world's largest trade publisher-he had ample experience guiding preachers, prophets, and seers through the dark valley of book production. So when Jenny called at 7:30 A.M. about the Phillips proposal, he said, "Sure, send it along."

The email attachment arrived within minutes, and Bud read the proposal through twice with his first cup of coffee. On initial reading, he simply opened his mind to the author's thought process without judgment, going along for the ride. Bud considered himself an intuitive editor, and he wanted to listen with his gut before proceeding to diagnose any problems. On second pass, he began to atomize the author's plan, applying techniques he'd learned years ago in a class on developmental editing. His former instructor, Robert Worth-whom, come to think of it, Bud hadn't spoken to in a while-was the one who had encouraged this gut-first, head-second approach.

Jenny was right: as outlined, American Pharisees would be a schizophrenic, three-headed monster. First, the author implied a parallel between today's Christian Right leaders and the Pharisees of the New Testament. If the draft table of contents (example 1) was any indication, Phillips would spend a third of the book expounding on Scripture before discussing present-day parallels. Second, he wanted to float a highly original but legally fraught thesis that the Christian Right's web of financial networks is a Ponzi scheme, a pyramid plan for selling salvation. Third, he would rework a sequence of sermons he'd given in Thousand Hills, Kentucky, called the "Bible On" series, which addressed the pressing issues of the day in light of scriptural precedent.

A generous sampling of the unrevised sermons revealed something unmentioned in the proposal: the author had led an adventurous life before receiving the call to the ministry. He'd been scouted by professional football clubs before entering military service during the Vietnam War, serving in an elite intelligence squad so "top secret" it remained unnamed. He'd then gone into high-stakes security, bringing his spymaster skills to the corporate world, and was living in a multimillion-dollar home in Montclair, New Jersey, when he received Jesus as his lord and savior, quit his job, and moved his wife and three children to a mid-western seminary school. He wove these personal anecdotes into his sermons deftly, but modesty seemed to prevent him from building his own swashbuckling story into the proposed book's structure.

Bud answered the phone; it was Jenny. Could he do anything to improve the focus of the proposal-by next week? Bud said he'd give it a whirl and turned his attention to the considerations that face author, publisher, and DE at the beginning of any new project: concept, audience, market, and vision.

Locate the Concept

Few pleasures are as great as the taste of a fresh idea. A new insight melts in the brain like chocolate on the tongue. Whether the insight is unprecedented in human history or news only to yourself doesn't matter; the first time a thought occurs is always magic. For an insight to be worth a whole printed book, however, an audience of significant size should join you in finding the insight fresh, if not revelatory.

CULL CONCEPTS FROM SUBJECTS. If you are an author or acquisitions editor, you can no doubt remember that "aha!" moment when you first thought of an idea for a book project. We call this insight a concept because it is the point of conception, the originary moment that gives birth to a book. Occasionally, an author stumbles across a subject that has never been written about before; in that case, the book's subject is itself novel enough to warrant publication. But most subjects have been written about before; in those cases, it is an author's special take on the subject that will make the book worth reading. This conceptual slant is one dimension of the author's point of view (see sidebar, "Point of View").

Suppose you want to write a book about the burgeoning charter-school movement in the United States. There are plenty of books on the market that already address the how-tos and wherefores; your concern is about how cyclical changes in the political arena tend to destabilize the funding and long-term development of these pioneer efforts in education. When you begin researching, you're not certain what prescriptions for improvement you will eventually offer. So your concept is expressed in broad terms, like this:

Concept: American charter schools need to be shielded from the effects of power shifts between Republican and Democratic administrations, in both the executive and legislative branches.

This formulation leaves ample room for development of any number of sharper theses.

CULL CONCEPTS FROM THESES. Just as a book's concept differs from its subject, so too does it differ from its main thesis. A concept is a broad avenue of inquiry; a thesis is a precise inquiry resulting in a series of precise conclusions. In your book on charter schools, a thesis would look something like this:

Thesis: American charter schools can be shielded from the effects of power shifts in government only if funds for them are mandated and allocated at the school-district level.

This formulation is too narrow to serve as a guiding concept for an open-minded investigation-it jumps to a particular conclusion. Of course, a book's concept ultimately crystallizes into a sharp thesis, but in the early stages of development, a concept should be kept broad enough to embrace a number of possible theses.

BEWARE OF FALSE CONCEPTS. In Hollywood, a movie is ironically deemed "high concept" when its hackneyed theme has been given a fresh coat of paint with a clever gimmick. In Ground Hog Day (1993), Bill Murray's character wakes up on the same February 2 over and over again and gradually realizes that he's stuck in time. The premise seems promising until the viewer realizes it's been put in service of a trite love story with a triter moral, namely, that one can learn from one's mistakes if one makes them often enough. The film succeeds as light entertainment, but conceptual it is not.

This superficiality is not limited to mainstream media. With interdisciplinary studies all the rage in the academy, publishers have seen a spate of books by professors writing outside of their fields of expertise, often unadvisedly. A groundbreaking biophysicist writes about jazz because he loves the music, but his artistic insights are nave; an art historian explores the masterpieces of Da Vinci from a scientific perspective and unveils a series of embarrassingly obvious correlations. These authors-original thinkers in their own fields-have mistaken the pleasure of personal insight for public revelation.

The problem with Brace Phillips's project was not that he lacked subjects or concepts but that he had too many subjects, and his attitudes toward them propelled his book in different conceptual directions. Because Bud was looking at a proposal and not a completed manuscript, his first impulse was to give Phillips the benefit of the doubt and assume that he would resolve these conflicts in the finished work. But Jenny and Bud both knew that a poorly conceived proposal often yields a poorly realized text. By revising and fleshing out the proposal now, they could increase its chances of producing a compelling and cohesive book.

Bud considered the first of the author's three potential concepts. Phillips seemed to be bogged down in Bible verses, making arcane distinctions among the scholarly Pharisees, priestly Sadducees, and political Zealots. Nowhere did the proposal explicitly state parallels between the religious factions of Christ's day and those of contemporary America. In short, the first of his potential concepts was underdeveloped; without clear direction from the author's perspective, it remained an inert subject.

The second of his potential concepts went to the opposite extreme. The author had not only seized on the concept of prosperity-gospel-as-Ponzischeme but evidently considered it a foregone conclusion. The proposal contained no discussion of the differences between Ponzi and pyramid schemes, for instance, much less between those and legitimate multilevel marketing schemes like Tupperware's. He didn't seem aware of the so-called Amway safeguards that serve as a litmus test for whether a financial organization is legal or Ponzi, though Bud had been able to learn of them in ten minutes of Internet surfing. If the first of the author's potential concepts was underdeveloped as a subject, this second was overdetermined as a polemical thesis.

Publishers would want this book to sell on the strength of its relevance to the upcoming election, and neither a scholarly disquisition on ancient Pharisees nor a diatribe against modern televangelists' financial shenanigans would serve that purpose. Which brought Bud to the third of the author's potential concepts, the inherent hypocrisy of the political platform of the Christian Right. The author's attitude toward the subject was clear: free will is the key to salvation through Jesus Christ; therefore, laws against "un-Christian" behavior are themselves un-Christian because they take away a citizen's choice to be sinner or saint. His grasp of this third concept was firmest because he'd already spent a lot of time researching it for his weekly sermons. Neither underdeveloped nor overdetermined, his approach to the subject was just right: capacious enough to embrace nuanced perspectives on a variety of political issues, yet directed enough to pack a conceptual wallop.

A fourth potential concept floated in the ether. In the central section of the proposed book, the chapter on the pyramid thesis was followed by a chapter on the free-market economy as a substitute for political democracy. The chapter titles asked, "Is the Prosperity Gospel a Pyramid Scheme?" and then "Do We Belong in Saudi Arabia?" as though the two questions were related, but the proposal did not address the linkage. Bud suspected the author would argue that Republican presidents' efforts to bring democracy to the Soviet bloc and to oil-rich Arab nations were really focused on opening up those regions as markets. Clearly, the Saudi war was a subject that would figure prominently in the election-but connecting those themes responsibly would require a sophisticated theoretical model that was not on the author's radar screen.

So the winner, it seemed, was behind door number 3, the doctrine of free will as an argument for separating church and state. Bud had located the most workable central subject and the author's attitude toward it-in other words, he had found the central concept. Now he needed to do some thinking about audience and market.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Developmental Editingby Scott Norton Copyright © 2009 by The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226595145
• ISBN 13: 9780226595146
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192