Development Notebook

Writing Editing Stages and Types

Standard Editing Order

Editing typically proceeds from big-picture to fine details:

1. Developmental / substantive editing — Structure, plot, characters, overall pacing, themes, scene-level effectiveness, and whether the narrative works as a whole.
2. Line editing — Style, voice, flow, rhythm, word choice, sentence-level clarity and impact.
3. Copy editing — Grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax, consistency, and style-guide adherence.
4. Proofreading — Final catch of typos, formatting glitches, and remaining minor errors.

Note: Doing line or copy work too early can waste effort, because developmental changes often require rewriting large sections.

Line Editing vs Copy Editing

Aspect	Line editing	Copy editing
Main focus	Style, voice, flow, pacing, clarity, word choice, rhythm	Grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax, consistency, style-guide rules
Core question	Is this the strongest / most effective way to say it? Does it read well?	Is this correct and consistent?
Nature	More creative and subjective	More objective and rules-based
Typical stage	After developmental editing, before copy editing	After line editing, before proofreading
Examples of work	Tightening awkward phrasing, improving sentence rhythm, strengthening word choice, smoothing transitions, preserving/enhancing author voice, fixing repetition or clunky structure	Fixing typos, comma rules, subject-verb agreement, capitalization, hyphenation, consistent spelling of names/terms, applying Chicago Manual of Style (or similar), light fact-checking

In short:

• Line editing = polish for beauty, impact, and readability.
• Copy editing = polish for correctness and consistency.

Simple example

Original: “Wiley stood out on his Montana porch watching the sunset ambiguously. The boiling orb descended under the palm-trees.”

• A line editor might question “boiling orb” as a description, note that “ambiguously” adds little, and suggest clearer, stronger phrasing that better matches the tone or scene.
• A copy editor would more likely fix the missing comma, the incorrect preposition or hyphen, and flag the factual issue (palm trees in Montana).

There can be some overlap, and some editors combine line + copy into a single pass. Order still matters: stylistic changes should generally come before mechanical cleanup.

My Specific Editing Passes

1. Grounding dialogue (avoiding “dialogues in a vacuum”)

Type: Primarily developmental / scene-level (content/substantive) editing.

I check that scenes feel grounded and fully rendered by adding “what’s going on around them”: action beats, body language, setting details, sensory information, and what characters are doing while they talk.

• Pure talking-head dialogue that floats without context is a common scene-craft issue.
• Fixing it strengthens immersion and scene effectiveness.
• It can lightly overlap with line editing (balancing the rhythm of dialogue + description), but the core question—“Is this scene complete and alive?”—belongs to the developmental stage.

2. Ensuring themes are present

Type: Developmental editing.

I do a pass to confirm that themes (friendship, duty, perseverance) come through in the story as a whole—via plot events, character choices, conflicts, resolutions, and motifs.

This is high-level narrative work, not sentence style or mechanical correctness.

Placement: Both of these passes belong early (developmental stage), before investing heavily in line or copy polishing.

Chapter X – Theme Focus

Primary Theme: Friendship / Duty / Perseverance

Secondary Theme: Optional

Key Moment: Describe the main scene or decision that shows the theme

Symbol / Image: Recurring object, action, or visual (e.g. broken sword, shared promise, storm)

How It Advances the Arc: How this chapter pushes the overall themes forward

Scratch Pad

• Additional
  • flat additions to the base value
  • sum with each other
• Percent Increased/Reduced the base value
  • Percent change
• Percent More/Less the modified value
  • Applied after increased/reduced

1. Sum all Added and Base values -> 10
2. Sum all Increased into one multiplier -> 1.45
3. Multiply Added/Base total x Increased multiplier ->10x1.45=14.5
4. Multiply by each More separately -> 14.5 x 1.05 x 1.3 x 1.1 = 21.77
5. Multiply by Amplified separately

Naval Combat

• Long Range (up to 250,000 km) -- lasers + railguns
• Missile Range (up to 1,000,000 km)
• Close range (under 20,000 km) --ion beams

    *ion beams are short range, but cause massive internal thermal and radiation effects.

Marine Hierarchy

• Fire Team
• Squad
• Platoon
• Company
• Battalion
• Regiment
• Brigade (1st Sylvan Marines)
• Division

navy will perform air cavalry and troop transport role with gunships. I need to flesh out the marine recon role.

Increase the length of the prologue, to have more fleeing, near death experiences, etc.,

Add the character artwork as commissions prior to a design change for the uniforms. They'll serve as bonus artwork on the special edition hardcovers.
Here is a list of characters

Here is a list of warships

Here are the Species and Professions.

http://robertplewis.com/index.php/Category:Naval_Weapons

http://robertplewis.com/index.php/System_Titles