Craft Glossary · term

1 · Developmental / structural edit (the "big picture")

← Craft Glossary · The Editorial Ladder

Plain English: The highest rung. Does the story work? — premise, plot architecture, character arcs, pacing, stakes, theme, POV strategy, the saggy middle, whether scenes earn their place. Wholesale: scenes get cut, added, reordered, rewritten.

Rule: Do this first and alone, on the cold read. Ask of every scene: does it turn? does it advance plot or character? would the book survive its deletion? If yes to the last, cut it.

Fail: Skipping it (polishing prose on a broken structure) — the most expensive mistake in revision.

See: Craft audit · ./run.sh craft-audit

Arjuna Badger Press · Craft Library

Glossary · Doctrine · Anti-patterns · Triptych form · LLM tells

← Back to glossary