Broadly: developmental editing addresses the book, line editing addresses the prose, copy editing addresses correctness and consistency, and proofreading catches what survives after layout.
That is the useful summary. It is also less settled than it looks, because the professional bodies that define these stages contradict each other, and the contradictions matter when you are hiring someone.
The Four Stages, As Each Body Defines Them
Editors Canada names four stages in its Professional Editorial Standards:
"Structural editing is assessing and shaping the overall organization and content of the material to optimize it for the intended audience, medium and purpose."
"Stylistic editing is editing to clarify meaning, ensure coherence and flow at the paragraph and sentence level, and refine the language."
"Copy editing is reviewing material to ensure correct and consistent grammar, punctuation, spelling and usage."
Proofreaders "examine material after its textual and visual elements have been laid out to correct any errors."
The Editorial Freelancers Association names four services, using the American vocabulary:
"Developmental editors (also called 'substantive,' 'structural,' or 'content' editors) deal with content, organization, and genre considerations."
"Line editors work at the sentence or paragraph level of a manuscript. Like copyeditors, they correct errors, but their main focus is on improving the language and style of the text."
"Copyediting involves correcting spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation, checking cross-references, and preparing the style sheets."
IPEd, the Australian body, names five aspects in its 2024 standards, adding manuscript assessment and separating developmental from substantive editing.
Where They Genuinely Disagree
These are not shades of emphasis. They change what you are buying.
Is line editing a stage at all?
Editors Canada makes it one, calling it stylistic editing. The EFA makes it a separate service with its own rate. IPEd 2024 puts it inside copy editing:
"These tasks are sometimes completed in 2 stages, with the first pass focusing on flow and readability (line editing) before corrections to spelling, grammar and punctuation."
Worse, the wording collides. Editors Canada's stylistic editing is "editing to clarify meaning... and refine the language". IPEd's copyediting is "editing to clarify meaning, smooth language". Nearly the same sentence, pointing at two different stages.
The practical consequence: an author offered "a copy edit" by an Australian editor and by a Canadian editor is being offered materially different work.
Is proofreading even editing?
A flat contradiction. The EFA:
"In fact, proofreading is not considered editing. If you're looking for someone to review and correct grammar and punctuation, you're seeking a copyeditor."
Editors Canada counts it as one of the four stages of editing, ending the sequence "in its last iteration at proofreading".
Are developmental, substantive and structural the same thing?
The EFA says yes, treating them as interchangeable. IPEd 2024 says no: developmental and substantive are separate categories, and structural is a subset nested inside substantive. Editors Canada uses "structural editing" and does not use "developmental editing" as a stage name at all.
Does copy editing include checking facts?
Editors Canada says yes, requiring editors to "Correct or query general information that should be checked for accuracy (e.g., quotations, URLs)". IPEd includes "accuracy and completeness". The EFA's definition omits accuracy entirely, making its copy edit the narrowest of the three.
How Long Each Pass Takes, and Why the Numbers Fight
This is where the disagreement becomes a budgeting problem. Both bodies use a 250-word page.
| Pass | EFA, surveyed fiction editors | Editors Canada guideline |
|---|---|---|
| Developmental / substantive | 5.5 to 10 pages/hour | 1 to 3 pages/hour |
| Copy editing | 6 to 10 pages/hour | 4 to 7 pages/hour |
| Proofreading | 10 to 15 pages/hour | 6 to 9 pages/hour |
On the developmental pass those differ by three to ten times. The likely reason is that the EFA reports what freelancers say they bill, from a survey of over 1,100 members covering 2025 work, while Editors Canada publishes a normative handbook guideline.
For a 90,000 word novel, which is 360 pages, that produces two very different schedules:
- EFA figures: roughly 96 to 161 hours across all three passes.
- Editors Canada figures: roughly 211 to 330 hours.
Use both. Averaging them hides exactly the uncertainty you need to plan around, and the Editors Canada numbers are the conservative ones.
The EFA's 2026 rate chart also gives fiction rates directly: developmental $52.50 to $70.00 an hour, line editing $50.00 to $60.00, copy editing $40.00 to $50.00, proofreading $35.00 to $45.00.
The Order, and the Reason Nobody Publishes
Every body puts developmental first and proofreading last. Editors Canada: the stages "begin when the content appears in its first iteration at structural editing and ends in its last iteration at proofreading." The EFA: "Proofreading is a late stage of preparing for publication and comes after your manuscript has been fully edited."
But none of them gives a reason. The universal justification, that you should not pay to polish sentences you are about to cut, appears in none of the four bodies' materials. It is sound reasoning and it is folk wisdom, not a published rationale.
The closest anyone comes is the EFA's note that line editing may be done "in conjunction with developmental editing after big-picture issues have been addressed", which restates the order rather than arguing for it.
How rigid the sequence is also varies. Editors Canada is most permissive, allowing stages to "Overlap or unfold differently". The EFA is strictest: "while one editor may be able to perform more than one of them, they would typically be done in stages." IPEd sits between, noting "the boundaries between them can be blurred."
One genuinely practical point from the EFA: a sample edit cannot evaluate a developmental editor. "Developmental editing, in particular, is too large in scope to be captured by a short sample edit. Services such as copyediting or line editing may be reasonably evaluated with a sample edit."
What Deckle Does
Deckle does not edit your book, but three features map onto these stages.
Comments are how an editor's feedback comes back and gets worked through, inline or at document level, which suits a developmental or line pass. See getting feedback from beta readers and editors.
Snapshots take a version of a document before you act on an edit, so a structural change you dislike is recoverable. Given that a developmental pass can mean reordering or cutting whole chapters, that matters more at this stage than any other.
The DOCX export with real Word styles is what you send an editor. Styles rather than direct formatting are what let them restructure in one action, covered in DOCX vs RTF for sending to an editor.
For consistency work specifically, the Codex does part of what a professional style sheet does, which is the subject of how to catch continuity errors.
Common Mistakes
- Assuming the terms mean the same thing everywhere. IPEd, EFA and Editors Canada define them differently.
- Buying a copy edit expecting a line edit. In Australian usage that may be what you get; in North American usage it is not.
- Expecting fact-checking in a copy edit. Two bodies include it; the EFA does not.
- Treating proofreading as a cheap substitute for editing. Editors Canada: "it is not a substitute for editing."
- Trusting one pages-per-hour figure. The bodies differ by up to ten times.
- Judging a developmental editor on a sample edit. The EFA says the scope makes that impossible.
FAQ
Q: What is the difference between line editing and copy editing? A: Line editing improves prose; copy editing enforces correctness and consistency. IPEd, however, treats line editing as the first pass of copy editing.
Q: Which do I need first? A: Developmental, then line, then copy, then proofreading. Every body agrees on the order, though none publishes a reason.
Q: How much will editing a novel cost? A: The EFA's 2026 fiction rates run $52.50 to $70.00 an hour for developmental work down to $35.00 to $45.00 for proofreading.
Q: How long does it take? A: For a 90,000 word novel, roughly 96 to 161 hours by EFA figures, or 211 to 330 by Editors Canada's.
Q: Is proofreading part of editing? A: Editors Canada says yes. The EFA says "proofreading is not considered editing". Genuinely disputed.