Pit Stop: The Joys and Complexities of Developmental Editing with Heidi Nobles
How does Edits on the Record compare to other publishers? Margaret sat down with Senior Editor Heidi Nobles to find out!
Note from Grace: At the end of last semester, Margaret and Professor Nobles sat down to discuss the developmental editing process. As we at Road Trip Press settle into the substantive editing stage, we wanted to share this conversation and these reflections with you!
In this post, our Senior Editor Heidi Nobles shares some of her insights into the value of the developmental editing stage and why it is such a worthwhile investment of both the author and editor’s time and energy. It’s been such an eye-opening experience to learn from Professor Nobles over the last year, both as her student and as one of her assistant editors, and I know the other assistant editors are equally grateful for this opportunity. She has such a wide range of experiences in the publishing and academic spheres that have shaped her powerful, astute ideas on writing and editing.
Margaret Ennen: Part of the excitement surrounding this project is that we get to do things differently than bigger publishers. How has this experience with Jessica’s manuscript so far differed from your work at other publishing companies in the past?
Heidi Nobles: From my side, this process has been kind of wonderful so far! I can’t describe how freeing it is to actually take time and enjoy each step and to value each person in the process, rather than feeling pressured to hit timelines that require compression, shortcuts, and awkward negotiations of power/people as tools. Of course, some of those realities are still in play—I’m conscious that while I want to enjoy the more relaxed timeline, I am responsible for getting a finished book published in a reasonable time period, for example, and we’ve talked in our podcast about the inevitable questions of who gets to decide what about the direction of the manuscript. But this version has felt much more spacious in all the best ways.
One specific example that might be helpful here: Jessica’s manuscript isn’t necessarily going the way I envisioned it. We initially imagined a commercial book for a general audience, and Jessica has moved more and more [from] that direction—she is still leaning heavily into literary criticism in a way that might perplex general readers. I’ve decided we need to switch the target market to college classes, which means a totally different approach to marketing and sales, possibly different codes going into the ISBN registration process, and different ancillary products (study guides, for example).
In terms of editing, it means building in a peer review process that we hadn’t planned for. That switch is very much not typical in traditional publishing, where all of that would have been locked down prior to publication, and where the manuscript would be arriving in one complete package versus in sets of pages as we’re taking Jessica’s project. But as a result, we’re also getting a chance to have a lot more influence over the shape of the book as it emerges—not control, or we wouldn’t be so surprised with each revision! We have a chance to review and nudge things along the way, and I think (hope) that’s going to pay off as we arrive at the next editorial stages: substantive editing and copy editing.
It's also exciting to be able to imagine avant-garde possibilities—page layout, ancillary products, launch options—and even to know, hey, this move might not land with the largest possible sales market, but we’re going with it because we think it’s in keeping with the author’s vision and a meaningful project. That freedom and the opportunity to see the “what if?” (both of which are usually prohibited because the projected loss of sales isn’t worth the risk) is so ridiculously satisfying.
Margaret Ennen: What do you think would surprise people to learn about developmental editing?
Heidi Nobles: I increasingly see how little people really know about developmental editing, as I’m used to defining it—this working-with-the-author-on-work-in-progress sort of editing. I think some people might be surprised that it is even part of the writing/editing process, that it’s even an option, rather than jumping straight into the more familiar types of editing where the editor is reworking a complete manuscript.
In terms of the developmental editing experience, I think most people would be surprised at how many “what ifs?” there are along the way to a finished book, or any finished product. Experimentation, exploration, and curation are all some of the most important work to take place in a project. Shortcutting that stage is a tragedy, in my opinion, and one that plays out all too often as we rush toward performance-ready work while running away from anything that might be “bad” or embarrassing. I’ve seen tremendous improvement in my students’ writing over the years as I’ve prioritized the developmental end of the writing process and let us handle “clean-up” at the end.
I was talking recently with a colleague about the generative AI situation. I’m fairly agnostic about gen AI; I see problems and possibilities with it, as with any technology. But we talked about gen AI short-circuiting the developmental process. A person says, “Oh, I have to write about X. What do I think about X? I don’t know.” Without gen AI, that person has to do some exploring—they have to ask someone else for ideas, or read a bit, or go for a walk and try to jangle a thought loose. But with gen AI, that person can ask a bot to “give them ideas,” and then can quickly land on something and say, sure, I can agree with that. That interaction determined the direction of a project that could have gone so many ways, but the person writing isn’t even aware of what the other options might have been. Not that this is a wholly new problem, but gen AI really intensifies things.
I suppose that side-trail brings me back to part of the role of the developmental editor—which is not to put strict railings on things or to supplant the author’s ideas, but to help the author have space, time, and support to explore those “what if” possibilities and to walk with the author toward what will be a public-facing version of their ideas.
The strength of a final draft is ultimately built on the layers of revision in the first, second, third, and fourth drafts, and the brainstorming and revision phases are absolutely worth the time investment! Even though I am about to graduate and finish my time as an undergraduate student, I think (and hope) that writing will always be part of my life. The insights I’ve gleaned from this project will stick with me for years to come, and I look forward to cheering Road Trip Press on as this project continues to offer glimpses into the editing and publishing worlds!
Thank you for following along with us! As always, you can keep up with Edits on the Record by subscribing to the blog, following us on Instagram (@editsontherecord), or by listening to our podcast!