Nonfiction developmental editing services are designed to assist writers with ensuring they’ve designed a cohesive structure for their book. For new nonfiction authors, this type of editorial service is extremely beneficial because your developmental editor will guide you through setting up the best possible version of your dream book.

But they don’t simply rearrange chapters. It’s much more nuanced than that.

What does a nonfiction developmental editor do?

Oftentimes, a developmental editor will be one of your first readers when you’re just starting out as an author. With that in mind, their first goal in this editing service is to give your book an in-depth read to get a feel for what you want to communicate.

As they read through your manuscript, they’ll take detailed notes about the topics you’ve included in each chapter. During the portion of the edit when they’re only focused on analyzing your book’s structure, this helps them determine if each block of content is in it’s right place.

This is all starts with the type of nonfiction book structure that’s best for your book.

There are several types of nonfiction book structures you can choose from:

• Timeline / Sequence. This type of narrative typically deals with one or a related set of events. For instance, if you’re writing a true crime book, you might either start with a background of the criminal if multiple crimes and victims are involved, or you might start with a background of the victim if you’re only focusing on one crime. From there, you’d typically write about the events as they unfolded.
• Problem and Solution. This type of narrative is pretty common with self-help or business books whose sole purpose is to help the reader solve a specific problem. These books will start with a detailed overview of the problem that will likely highlight all the different ways people might experience this unique problem. From there, the author will typically build on the solution step-by-step with techniques they created on their own.
• Cause and Effect. This type of narrative is pretty self-explanatory. Though you might also be dealing with problems and solutions, the way you structure your book will deal more with caused the problem and the consequences that followed. Then you can follow that with the solution or how you handled it.
• Compare and Contrast. You might be familiar with this structure if you’ve spent any time in an English or speech class. It’s a traditional structure for many types of communication delivery that allow you to explore a topic by showing how it’s similar to and different from another topic.
• Description. This type of nonfiction book structure will use sensory details to break down a topic or an event. Because this is one of the more vague ways to structure a book, if you’re writing this type of book, you’ll likely also use another type of structure together with this one.
• Narrative Nonfiction. This type of book is written much like a novel is written. However, instead of working with fictional characters and settings, the people, places, and events you’ll write about will be real. Narrative nonfiction books are often also told in some sort of sequence, either backward, forward, or back and forth between past and present time.
• Memoir. Like narrative nonfiction, memoirs tend to blend nonfiction and fiction writing techniques. Some authors use a timeline structure, while others might want to tell their story through problem and solution or cause and effect. There is no one right way to structure a memoir because it’s all up to the author’s interpretation of their own story.

But what if my book doesn’t have a structure?

This is what’s great about nonfiction developmental editing services. If your structure is confusing or all over the place, they can help you identify what structure best fits the type of book you’ve written. It will require a lot of deep work on your part—and the part of your editor—but you’ll end up with narrative that’s much easier to read and understand.

Developmental editors also ensure the content is relevant within each part or chapter of your nonfiction book.

This is done through two techniques:

1. Removing unnecessary content
2. Adding missing content

Why did my developmental editor want to remove material from my manuscript?

There are several reasons why your book editor might have suggested you remove content from your book:

• It wasn’t relevant to your overall topic or the focused topic of the part or chapter
• It was information repeated from a previous section
• It distracted from the overall theme or vision of your nonfiction book
• It contradicted previous content written in another section of your book
• It didn’t add anything to your narrative

Additionally, there are several reasons why your editor suggested to add additional content to your book:

• A block of content was confusing
• More information was needed to clarify an idea
• The material in the chapter was not consistent with previous chapters
• An idea could have been developed a bit more to add more value for the reader
• Content was misleading, false, or unethical

The important thing to note here is that when you’re looking for a developmental editor, you want to find one who understands how to communicate with authors, whether they are beginners or experts.

About Editors & Writers Developmental Editing Services

In addition to what we talked about above, E&W has several options for developmental edits that include . . .

• Analysis of the effectiveness of manuscript’s structure
• Suggestions for improvements on the current structure
• Any missed opportunities for additional chapters or material
• Identification of any missing outside evidence
• Identification of any outside evidence that can be eliminated
• Identification of any plot holes in the story
• Identification of any confusing parts of the manuscript
• Missed opportunities for plot twists or connections to other parts of the story
• Opportunities for additional characters that add to the effectiveness of the story
• Answers to up to ten questions author has about their story
• Complimentary thirty-minute video call to answer any additional questions or concerns
• Up to three pages of a beta-reader report from genre expert
• Up to twenty pages of a developmental letter/blueprint that highlights strengths and areas for improvement

We also have an option for unlimited editing for an entire year.

Want to receive a free sample edit of up to 1,000 words of your manuscript?

You can upload your sample here.