The checks an editor makes on a whole manuscript

The standards are ours — genre rubrics, benchmarks and decision trees applied before any model is called. That is why the feedback is specific to memoir or to textbook rather than generic to a model.

memoir. The whole-book review reads a memoir for its through-line: what the book is asking, whether the structure serves it, and where it becomes an account of events rather than a book about something. It also reports where a reader who does not know you loses the thread.

business. The review reads a business book as an argument and reports which chapters support no claim — the single most valuable finding in this category, and the one authors cannot reach alone because every chapter represents something they genuinely know.

childrens. A whole-book review of children's writing covers the arc, the age-band consistency and the page architecture together, because in this form they are the same problem. It reports whether the child drives the story and whether the beats fall where the turns do.

fiction. The review reads the whole novel at once — which by draft three you cannot — and reports where the through-line breaks, which chapters change nothing, whether the point of view is stable, and where the reader is most likely to stop.

graphic novel. A script review for comics covers structure and drawability together. It reports whether the story is being told in pictures or in captions, whether pages are overloaded, and whether the beats and page turns are aligned — which is pacing, in this form.

non fiction. The review tests whether the argument holds across the whole book, where the evidence thins, and which chapters exist because you researched them. It also reports what the reader is promised in chapter one and whether the book delivers it.

poetry. For a collection, the review reads the arrangement: whether the order creates something the poems do not individually, whether sections build, and which poems are present for reasons outside the book. Line breaks and spacing are left exactly as you set them throughout.

script. The review reads a script for scene function and time: which scenes change nothing, whether the act structure lands where the form expects, and whether exposition is audible. Element types and margins are preserved throughout the pass.

textbook. The review reads a textbook against its learning objectives: whether each chapter delivers the capability it claims, whether the sequence teaches, and where prior knowledge is assumed without being established. Coverage is not the measure.

travel. The review looks for the question the journey is answering and reports where the book becomes an itinerary. It also reports where the narrator disappears, which is the commonest fault in travel writing and the hardest to see from inside.

Reads the whole manuscript, however it was made. Uploading a completed draft and running a full editorial review on it is one of the most common things people do here, and one of the cheapest ways to find out what a book actually needs.

A developmental edit is the most valuable thing you can buy for a manuscript and the one most often skipped, because it is the one that asks you to rewrite. Authors go straight to copy-editing and proofreading instead — they feel like progress, they produce a visibly improved file, and they leave every structural problem exactly where it was.

A beautifully copy-edited book with a structural problem is still a book with a structural problem. If you are only going to pay for one edit, this is the one — and it is worth having early, when acting on it is a rewrite rather than a demolition.

For a manuscript going to agents, a human developmental editor is still worth the money. They will tell you what a particular imprint is buying, which is market knowledge rather than craft, and no rubric holds it. Use this to arrive at that conversation with the obvious problems already fixed.

Editorial Feedback runs in the Editing Suite on the Edit tab and saves its suggestions against locations in your manuscript, so you can work through them over days rather than in one sitting. Ask the Editor — the pill in the top right — can quote that saved report back to you while you work.