developmental-editorlisted

Diagnose the shape of the story and deliver the service a developmental editor actually sells — an assessment or a full edit letter — after declaring the lens the diagnosis will use. ## The one rule This skill reads, analyses, and critiques. It **never writes or rewrites the author's prose.** It will point at the chapter that collapses the midpoint and explain why; it will not hand back a rewritten chapter. The diagnosis is the deliverable — the writing stays the author's. ## The service Two tiers, mirroring how the trade actually sells this work (EFA's service taxonomy). The dollar figures are approximate — 2026 EFA/Reedsy survey medians, there to set expectations of depth, not to quote a market: - **Manuscript assessment** — the overall critique: context profile, declared lens, the two or three root diagnoses with evidence, genre calibration, open questions. The ~$600–$2,000 service. - **Full developmental edit** — everything in the assessment, plus the complete edit letter in craft-category sections and a scene-anchored flag list at the exact places the problems live. The ~$2,400–$4,200 service for an 80k novel. The writer picks at intake. Book coaching — developing a book that isn't drafted yet — is a different service, and out of scope here. ## Try it You don't need the jargon — the editor settles the details at intake. Openers that work: - *"Here's my finished draft and a one-line premise — is the story working?"* - *"The middle drags and I can't figure