How Can AI Help Developmental Editors?

Table of Contents

What Is AI Developmental Editing?

Why Use AI for Developmental Editing?

How Can You Use AI for Developmental Editing?

Step 1: Choose the Right Tool

Step 2: Get Pre-editing Support

Step 3: Fact-Check and Brainstorm During Editing

Step 4: Drafting Feedback

What Are the Challenges of Using AI for Developmental Editors?

Final Thoughts

Developmental editing is a complex task requiring creativity, strategy, people skills, and a deep understanding of publishing and genre. It’s no wonder we developmental editors tend to think highly of ourselves. When the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) first entered our personal narratives, it made sense that many of us assumed the technology would not be capable of assisting with this demanding, cerebral higher level of editing.

As AI has become entrenched in writing and lower levels of editing, developmental editors now may be starting to squirm and may be asking: Can a machine truly understand the nuances of a story? Will a bot render my hard-earned expertise into a bunch of algorithms? Is there still a place for me—the human—in this new technological era?

It’s true that AI’s analytical capabilities are well suited to helping developmental editors with many job duties. This article lays out how to use AI for developmental editing in a way that complements your human skills and allows you to improve your editing efficiency without compromising your editorial judgment or integrity—which should never be replaced. When a developmental editor uses AI to quickly identify a manuscript’s flaws, it frees up time to focus on creative solutions, resulting in higher-quality edits completed faster. Sounds too good to be true? It isn’t. Read on.

What Is AI Developmental Editing?

Developmental editing is a type of editing that focuses on improving the “big picture” elements of a manuscript. It analyzes fundamentals like structure, pacing, plot and character development, and theme and synthesizes the information into suggestions for improvement. This guides the author to create a manuscript that is cohesive and engaging and potentially loved one day by readers and critics alike.

AI developmental editing includes the same pieces as traditional developmental editing but adds AI tools to assist human editors with analysis, brainstorming, and reducing the manual workload. In AI developmental editing, tasks are divided, with the AI doing the tasks it can do best and the human editor doing the tasks they can do best.

Why Use AI for Developmental Editing?

Imagine doing your job but doing it faster and easier. Now imagine doing your job faster, easier, and better. Incorporating AI into your editorial workflow opens the doors to big gains in efficiency and quality, when used effectively.

• Speed: You can get back all of the hours you would have spent on your first read-through by having AI do it for you. Thanks to recent technological improvements, some AI tools can analyze entire book-length manuscripts in one go. Within seconds, they can spit out a chapter-by-chapter summary and report of the main weaknesses you would have identified yourself during your first pass. Now you’ll be more prepared when you start page one.

• Quality: AI can be excellent at identifying content gaps, recognizing inconsistencies, and brainstorming ideas and solutions. Working together with it means fewer subtle issues slip through the cracks and you will have options to consider that you may not have thought of on your own. (Think of it like a colleague you can bounce ideas off of.)

Now that you know the key benefits, let’s examine how to incorporate AI in your work.

How Can You Use AI for Developmental Editing?

There’s a place for AI at all stages of the developmental editing workflow, from pre-editing tasks to drafting feedback for authors. Here’s an overview of some ways to use AI in your work.

Step 1: Choose the Right AI Tool

The first step is to choose the best AI tool in the toolbox. This depends on the type of content you are working with.

Shorter Works

If you work on a chapter-by-chapter basis or you’re editing a shorter piece, such as an article or marketing copy, you have more options. Just about any chatbot (such as ChatGPT or Copilot) can handle your developmental editing analyses.

Longer Works

If you work with full-length book manuscripts, until recently, you had to break the document into smaller chunks the AI could take in. Now, there are tools that can do full-length manuscript analysis. One option is Claude, which is a favorite among book editors. The one I’m currently finding to be most accurate and consistent with long documents is Google’s NotebookLM. It also cites which exact page it pulled information from, making it easy to verify its work. Google Gemini also works incredibly well with long documents. (The main difference between NotebookLM and Gemini is the interface.)

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Step 2: Get Pre-editing Support

Use AI to supercharge your prep work so your time spent editing inside the manuscript can be more focused.

Summaries and Synopses

Prompt the AI to generate a detailed synopsis or chapter-by-chapter summaries so you can quickly get an overview of the material.

Example Prompt: Please provide a synopsis of this book. Include all main points and key concepts.

Claude summarizing a 149-page public-domain philosophical work

Supplementary Documents

Developmental Editing involves tracking many different elements, page by page, as you go. The right AI tool can do this tracking for you and create documents both you and the author may find helpful, such as:

• Character Lists

• Setting Lists

• Plot Timelines

• Subtopic Lists

• Glossaries

Example Prompt: Please extract a list of settings in the book. Include a brief description of each setting.

Gemini extracting the lengthy list of settings from an obscure public-domain fantasy book

Analyses to Identify Issues

Think of the problem areas authors tend to struggle with and ask the AI to analyze them. You can receive structured analyses while leaving room for your creative editorial influence and decision-making. Here are examples:

Plot Analysis

If you know the plot’s intended framework, prompt the AI to fit plot points onto the template to see where the plot may be misaligned.

Example Prompt: Please map the plot onto the Freytag’s pyramid story structure.

Follow-Up Prompt: Explain how well the plot follows the Freytag’s pyramid story structure.

NotebookLM organizing the fantasy book's plot according to the Freytag's Pyramid story structure

Character Analysis

Get help determining the overall strengths and weaknesses of specific characters, whether they make quality heroes or villains, whether they’re relatable, and more.

Example Prompt: Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the main character's arc and offer suggestions for improvement.

Content Gap Analysis

When working with nonfiction, you can prompt the AI to look for areas where adding subtopics could make the work feel more complete.

Example Prompt: Please review chapter 3 and list subtopics the author could add or expand to make the book more comprehensive.

NotebookLM conducting a content gap analysis on the philosophy book

Structural Analysis

This analysis type works with both fiction and nonfiction. Use AI to probe whether the structure fits the expectations of the genre and makes sense.

Example Prompt: Please analyze the book's structure and list any places where the sequence of arguments lack logical flow.

Step 3: Fact-Check and Brainstorm During Editing

Wish you could get a quick second opinion or access your own personal fact-checker while editing? Now you’ve got one.

Fact-Checking

If you question whether you're correctly remembering the detail that seemed unimportant when you read it days ago, you can ask NotebookLM about it. It will review the copy of the manuscript you’ve uploaded and answer.

Example Prompt: Where did Zorak and Zena have the discussion about the magical ring?

Brainstorming

As you edit and come across an element that could be improved, you can ask AI to brainstorm a list of ideas to fix the issue. They won’t all be good, but there will likely be some you had not considered. You can use your experience and editorial judgment to select the best option.

Example Prompt: Please suggest plot events that could take place between chapters 9 and 10 to fill in any gaps in the timeline.

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Step 4: Drafting Feedback

Through the analyses the AI conducted at the pre-editing stage, you’ll have pages of helpful insights you could put your touch on and incorporate into your editorial feedback. If there are any topics you may need to use careful wording with, such as suggesting the author cut a beloved character or favorite chapter, you could ask the AI for guidance with explaining your reasoning. You’ll want to be mindful not to have it sound like a robot wrote it, but it can quickly get you 80% of the way to the wording you want.

Example Prompt: Please write a compliment sandwich about why the Zorak character should be cut. The first paragraph should focus on a strength of the Zorak character. The second paragraph should explain why Zorak should be cut. The third paragraph should focus on a positive of the Zorak character while maintaining the recommendation to cut.

What Are the Challenges of Using AI for Developmental Editors?

While AI offers developmental editors many benefits, it also has limitations and should not be used without careful human oversight. One common drawback is AI tends to offer ideas that are generic (overused tropes), cliché (end every chapter on a cliffhanger), or simply misaligned with the author’s style (suggesting against experimentation in literary fiction).

Also, since AI isn’t human, it doesn’t know what it’s like to be human. You do. You can better gauge the manuscript’s emotional resonance than any program can. Your human editorial judgment, emotional intelligence, and experience remain integral to the developmental editing process.

Final Thoughts

When used well, AI tools like Claude and NotebookLM can be powerful partners to developmental editors. AI can join its analytical skills with your creativity and empathy to conduct edits that are efficient, comprehensive, creative, and that enable authors to create stronger connections with readers, tell better stories, and make their words have greater impact.

Learn with Erin

Erin Servais teaches editors to upskill with Artificial Intelligence through her AI for Editors courses and customized group training. She is known worldwide as a thought leader in AI education for editors, writers, and other publishing professionals. Learn more at www.aiforeditors.com and www.servaissolutions.com.

This article first appeared in the Independent Book Publishers Association's newsletter.

AI Use Disclosure: The author used AI to assist with creating the outline for this article.

Editing Beyond the Red Pen: A Beginner's Guide to AI

Picture this: You’re sitting at your desk, polishing pages of text with only a few keystrokes. With each tap of your fingertips, sentences tighten, grammar errors vanish, and punctuation falls perfectly into place. By the time you reach the bottom of your first cup of coffee, you've finished a project that once would've taken all morning.

This isn’t science fiction. It’s what work can be like right now when you know how to use AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude. This technology is an evolution in how editors work—like the shift from editing using pen and paper to the word processor. Editors who lean into the AI revolution will be able to edit faster and better (yes, better) plus have job security in an increasingly AI-enhanced workforce.

If you haven’t started exploring AI, the time is now. Go ahead and dive in. Here are six essential tips to help you get started.

1. Be Specific

The number one idea to keep in mind about AI is this:

AI does what you tell it to do, not necessarily what you want it to do.

Clarity is key. Provide the AI with specific instructions so you get the results you want. Instead of prompting it vaguely to “Edit this,” instruct it to “Copyedit this corporate report to improve clarity and to correct errors of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Follow Associated Press style.”

For editing and writing tasks, consider including the following elements to make your prompts specific:

Task (copyedit, rewrite)

Format (blog post, checklist, email)

Audience (grade level, profession)

Tone (casual, friendly, professional)

Example: Instead of "Improve this web page text," try "Please revise this web page text by improving SEO, incorporating keywords related to urban chicken keeping, and making the language suitable for a general audience with a seventh-grade reading level."

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2. Ask Follow-Up Prompts

Think of the initial response ChatGPT or Claude gives you as the first draft of a work in progress. To help it revise, use follow-up prompts. These are instructions you send after your first prompt that allow you to tailor the AI's output to your specific requirements.

Often, follow-up prompts include more details about the format, audience, and tone.

Example: After receiving the AI’s initial edit, you might realize the tone isn't quite right for the target audience. To refine the text, you could use a follow-up prompt like "Please rewrite this to have a more conversational tone."

3. Think Shorter

Many popular AI tools don’t yet have the capability to reliably work with large pieces of text. You can technically upload a 100-page document, but it can’t give you a thorough and quality analysis of it yet.

When content editing, think at the level of chapter and article. When copyediting, think about page and paragraph. This method of chunking content helps tools like ChatGPT to give you focused and precise results.

Know more capability is coming. Learn these techniques now, and you’ll be ready when it’s here.

Example: Instead of uploading the entire manuscript of a novel and asking for a developmental edit, paste a section from a chapter and use a prompt, such as, “Here is the opening of the novel’s chapter 7. Please suggest improvements to better incorporate the setting into the scene.”

4. Consider the Whole Workflow

To make the most out of AI in editing, consider how you can use it throughout your entire editorial workflow, not just with the actual editing part. As you go about your daily work, ask yourself: How can AI save me time?

Here are some other ways to incorporate AI:

Drafting Emails: Quickly generate professional and well-structured emails. Have it make templates for routine emails (like proposal submissions and testimonial requests) and help you find the right words when you have to send awkward and tricky emails (like late-payment requests).

Creating Marketing Material: From catchy taglines to compelling copy, ChatGPT and Claude can help you brainstorm and craft marketing content. To be really efficient, think how you can use AI to repurpose content. Within minutes, it can write the first draft of a blog post and then convert it into a promotional email and social media posts. Now that it has a built-in image generator, it can even create an image to go along with the text.

Researching and Fact-Checking: Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine that's like the Google we always wanted. Enter a simple search query, and it quickly composes an encyclopedic summary entry on the topic and cites its sources so you can double-check. Rather than scrolling through pages of unusable links, Perplexity gives you high-quality sources you can trust, making your researching and fact-checking a breeze.

Making Custom Word Macros: ChatGPT can build macros for Microsoft Word that you can use with every project or specific, single-use macros that will save you time with one project.

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5. Invest in ChatGPT's Paid Version

The editors who dismiss ChatGPT’s capabilities often have not experimented with the paid version. The free version can give you only a fraction of a glimpse into what the paid version can do. It’s like comparing a rowboat with a rocket ship.

The paid version offers quicker response times, vastly improved output, increased accuracy, and priority access to new features. ChatGPT can save you days of work every month and is worth the monthly $20 subscription. You can register for a paid plan here: https://openai.com/

6. You Still Have to Do Your Job

AI is not a replacement for human editors. Editors bring a depth of understanding, emotional intelligence, and cultural awareness that AI cannot replicate. It can conduct basic editing with accuracy and offer helpful content-editing suggestions, but it can't fully grasp the nuance or make the context-specific judgment calls that professional editors can. And, just like human editors, it sometimes makes mistakes.

Using these skills will allow AI to augment your capabilities. This will free up time so you can focus on the parts of editing that require your unique human skills. Remember, AI is a powerful tool, but the true artistry of editing still lies in the hands of skilled editorial professionals, human ones.

Erin Servais helps editors upskill through AI. Her AI for Editors course is known worldwide as the #1 AI course for editors of all types, including medical editors, finance editors, education editors, corporate communications editors, and book editors.

A version of this article first appeared in the Editorial Freelancers Association's newsletter, where Erin is writing a series about AI and editing.

Email Erin: Erin@aiforeditors.com