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As a freelance romance editor since 2018, I’ve critiqued about a bajillion opening chapters as free sample edits. By now, from just the first 1,500 words of a romance novel, I can almost always judge accurately 1) whether the manuscript is ready for editing and 2) what type(s) of editing the manuscript needs. Often, I sense some anxiety from potential clients; they send me way more than 1,500 words because they fear I won’t really get a feel for their story from just the beginning.
(Please don’t send me a longer sample than I ask for. It’ll make me think you didn’t read the email I worked really hard on.)
And while it’s possible I’ll be stumped—I’ve occasionally provided a second sample edit at my own request—it’s pretty likely I’ll know everything I need to know immediately.
Here’s how I can tell your manuscript needs developmental editing, which is the type of editing that has to do with the story.
The only character in the opening scene is the narrator.
Throughout your romance novel, you’re probably going to have at least one scene with just your main character in it, maybe pouting or brooding sexily (I’m picturing that bathtub scene with Rachel McAdams’s Allie in The Notebook). But by the time that scene happens, you’ll have already done the work of making your reader give a crap about what happens to this person. At the beginning of the book, they don’t even know the guy! They need something more than some stranger sitting around thinking to compel them to keep reading.
If your POV character is the only person in that first scene, it tells me the story may need some reorganizing and pacing changes, which I can give guidance about in a developmental edit. My objective is to help you hook the reader immediately so you can get lots of book sales.
The story opens with your POV character waking up (or has some other common first-chapter cliché).
This isn’t meant to deride anyone. All writers have had a cliché opening before. And it makes sense that your character’s story starts when they wake up because they do it every single day. But so does everyone reading your book. Your reader knows what waking up on a typical day is like, and it’s not that interesting. So start your story in the middle of some action instead.
(“What if my character wakes up from a dead sleep because a knife is at his throat?” you ask. Well, that’s pretty different from how people usually wake up. I might not suggest you change that one, but I suspect it could also be an overused setup, at least in the wider fiction market.)
Another tired story opener is putting your character in a dream. A dream has zero stakes because it’s not “real” inside the story; it manipulates the reader and wastes their time.
If your manuscript has an overused opening, that signals to me you are a newer writer. That means you have room to grow and that you and your manuscript will almost certainly benefit from a developmental edit.
The POV character isn’t dealing with some type of interesting problem.
Story is conflict. Story is “what will happen next?” So it’s hard for readers to get emotionally invested in a character who is just strolling peacefully through life, not even at risk of something. To get your reader on board with your main character, show them dealing with some type of problem in the opening scene. It also needs to be immediately clear to the reader why this is a problem for this particular character.
Is your heroine at a party, for example, and her super-successful, super-married ex is also there? See, your reader can empathize with a character who is just trying to get through a party but keeps getting distracted by how much better her alphahole ex is doing in life and love than she is. Maybe your MC isn’t attending the party but is actually running it—it’s one of her first big shindigs as an event planner. Your MC is overseeing the party as “the help,” and her horrible ex is the guest of honor. Layering conflict in this way will get your reader thinking, “She’s so right to be annoyed that her ex is there on a day that’s so important for her! What’s going to happen when she and her ex interact at the party?” And that means your reader is hooked.
If a manuscript lacks a workable conflict in the beginning, it likely lacks it elsewhere in the story. A developmental edit will help you address that and any other areas that need improvement.
Do you suspect your manuscript is in need of a developmental edit? Request a free sample edit.
