The line between the two can shift, depending upon perspective
At every level of edit, editing is as much an art as it is a science. At the levels that ensure adherence to conventions and mechanics and grammar (light to medium copyediting), there are mostly rules to be followed.
At the levels that evaluate the use of language on a myriad of points beyond the merely correct (line editing) and that evaluate structure and organization in light of content, audience, and purpose — and at times, the content itself, in light of audience and purpose — (developmental editing), there are instead principles to be considered.
The deeper the edit, the more interpretive the work
The distinctions between the lighter, more superficial (with respect to the text, not with respect to importance) levels of edit and the deeper, more foundational levels means that the deeper into a piece an editor goes, the more interpretative the work. There may be only one or two ways to punctuate a particular phrase or clause both correctly and well, three or four ways to most successfully rephrase a sentence. But when it comes to restructuring a chapter or section — or an entire book — a group of editors each working individually might find as many ways to conceptualize the restructure as there are editors in the group. Add in revising and augmenting the text, and you’re looking at an almost infinite number of ways of approaching the task.
The levels of edit: where in the process?
The levels of edit are distinguished, to some extent, by where in the process the work falls. Is this early on, with the ms only in first or second draft? Or has the work been through extensive editing and revision and is it now nearly final? If the project is progressing according to plan, with staged drafts, the level of edit is most typically correlated with schedule.
The levels of edit: what does the work need?
But the levels are distinguished also, in a deeper, truer sense, purely by what the text needs to become the very best that it can be: the inherent condition of the text itself dictates (in an ideal world) the level of edit needed. Moving from the bottom of the editing pyramid on up to the top, with questions such as . . . Is the work well structured and is that structure clear? Does the work successfully address the exigencies of subject matter, audience, and purpose? Is the writing crisp and clean and well paced? Is it smooth, does it flow? Does it engage? Does it express the thoughts intended clearly, without misstep or misinterpretation? Without misplaced emphasis? Are the mechanics all in order? Syntax, grammar, usage, punctuation, caps, and so on.
Two crucial questions: Who makes the call? Who does the “heavy lifting”?
What can differ, in different writing and editing environments, is who is charged with deciding the exact changes to be made. And who, with making those changes. It is always the editor’s task to diagnose and suggest. It may or may not be her task to absolutely determine the remedy or to apply it.
These questions come up most particularly with respect to developmental and line editing.
The author holds sway
In some contexts, the editor’s jurisdiction is correctness and appropriateness, and the writer owns the text. This division can sometimes translate to the editor owning light copyediting on up to the most superficial aspects of the text, with the writer owning medium copyediting and deeper. In this context, if the editor is working deeply, line or developmentally editing — where most typically any one of a number of potential fixes might resolve the issue — she is working in the realm of suggestion. She may propose, even recommend, a particular solution. Or perhaps offer two or three possibilities. For a recurring problem, she may model one or two solutions and then leave the writer to resolve the rest on her own. Along with diagnosis and remedy, naturally, she is explaining as needed to make clear the issue and its ramifications.
This is most typically the case with fiction, for example, where other than with the lightest and most mechanical of fixes, the editor comments, suggests, and recommends, leaving the writer to decide what changes, if any, to make.
Where the author is also a professional writer with experience, this is more likely to be the balance in nonfiction as well.
The editor holds sway
In other contexts, the editor may be given more authority over the text, with suggestions and recommendations that the author will have some leeway over in terms of how to address — but that must be addressed, most typically by the author.
This is often the case with nonfiction trade, most particularly when the author is a subject matter expert, but not a professional writer. With nonfiction, too, there is sometimes an additional set of standards to which the work must adhere, as when the book is part of a series.
In some contexts or situations, the editor may have even more authority over the text, not simply making suggestions and recommendations, but jumping into the text and making the changes needed.
This is often the case with corporate writing, when the writer is, again, a subject matter expert, not a professional writer. In a corporate context, the corporate employer or client (and not the writer) owns the rights to the final work. In writing for hire, it is often the editor who makes the final call.
Who implements the changes?
In fiction, it’s the author, all the way. Fiction is a creative endeavor, and so it’s the author’s baby. The author makes the call, deciding which recommendations and suggestions to accept, deciding how to accept them, what changes to make, how to work them in, and so on. And the author does the work.
In nonfiction trade, it’s generally also the author, though the changes indicated must be made. If, however, the author is unable or unwilling — and these are changes the publisher wants — the editor will then step in to make them herself.
And a third: who’s the client?
Where the publisher (traditional or corporate) is the client, the editor must follow the dictates of that publisher.
Where the author is instead the client, the context shifts. The author has hired the editor for her expertise, but the author may choose to accept her recommendations or not.
So, what’s developmental, what’s more? (Or, in that context, is there never “more”?)
Circling back to the central question, we might now ask: When is developmental work in a text editing? When ghosting? And perhaps also, when does one shade instead into the other?
At any level of edit deeper than, say, light copyediting (about which there is generally little controversy), there is this potential division of labor, this potential division of role. Following the editor’s review, it may be the writer who is working through the text, deciding upon and implementing the actual changes. Or it may be the editor. It all depends upon the editing context and the expectations of that context.
But it is only at the level of developmental work that this division of role has such deep ramifications that the nature of the work itself depends upon it. Is the editor analyzing, suggesting, modeling, with the writer then making the decisions and doing the work? Or is the editor herself stepping in to effect those changes? Does she not only diagnose, but remedy? Is it she who restructures the text, revises the writing, in the process perhaps undertaking original research, perhaps adding entirely new thoughts to that writing?
The “heavy lifting” may be a determining factor
In some contexts, the former (the editor analyzing and suggesting) is considered developmental editing, the latter (the editor stepping in to make the changes, deeply reworking and adding to the original in the process) ghostwriting.
In these contexts, the determining factor is who is taking ownership of the changes, who is deciding precisely what changes to apply and how, who is reshaping the work, reshaping the text — upon who is doing, as it is sometimes called, the “heavy lifting.” At the end of this process, the draft can look very different indeed, its very character changed. At the end of this process, the work can be on an entirely new and different trajectory.
Or not
In other contexts, the work isn’t called ghostwriting unless the writing is entirely from scratch. The ghost may interview the author, may work from rough notes (but nothing like a draft) or an outline, some sort of vision, but it is the ghost who is putting pen to paper, as it were, from the very start.
In these environments, if a draft is developmentally reworked by an editor, that work is given its own designation: rewriting. Such work is distinct, in this context, both from a developmental edit and from ghostwriting of the sort that begins from scratch, with research or reporting.
But that hands-on work is often distinguished in some way from “developmental”
In either context, when the work of a developmental edit extends beyond the point of analysis and diagnosis to determining (and implementing) each and every fix, to reworking text, rewriting text — to taking over the draft in the manner of a writer — that work is typically given a distinct label. It is no longer developmental editing. It has gone beyond.
Is it ghostwriting, every bit as much as beginning from scratch with only source material to work with? Or is it rewriting, distinct from that other brand of ghosting? It all depends on your foundational sensibilities. Developmental editors will tend to consider that work another species of writing, something that extends beyond the developmental work. From-scratch ghostwriters perhaps as something a little less.
Either way, it’s work in the name and voice (or sometimes enhanced voice) of another.