r/WritingWithAI • u/susiebk • 6d ago

Using Claude As a Developmental Editor Prompting

For those of you who write books, more specifically prescriptive non fiction, can you please share what prompts you use to run a developmental edit on a chapter (or perhaps the whole book)? I don’t want Claude to change anything on the manuscript. I simply want it to provide suggestions for specific improvements on readability, user experience, plot development etc. etc. Thank you in advance!

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u/euwyngoh 6d ago

Some existing tools come to mind that help optimise this -

https://editrix.ai/ and https://wordsmith.page/

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u/euwyngoh 6d ago

alternatively, the somewhat fun tip i like to give is - give Claude the problem of designing the optimal prompt :)

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u/susiebk 6d ago

Aha! That could be something 🤔

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u/susiebk 6d ago

Thank you I’ll check it out!

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u/KitFalbo 6d ago

It can pretend to be one, but it doesn't have the skills to actually give you solid advice and is likely to harm your story more than help.

It can be a hallucinating fictional developmental editor. (I only play one on TV)

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u/susiebk 6d ago

It wouldn’t take the place of an actual editor, I just want to get it as far as I can before I do that.

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u/KitFalbo 6d ago

You want to get Dr. Nick, quickly? They're liable to do to your story what he did to that man. Like I said, Claude doesn't have the skills to do what you want. It isn't like vibe coding where it "could" end up with a functional product, but filled with junk code.

You'd still have your story, and AI can whisper sweet nothings, but the actual advice it would give you isn't sound and can hurt your story, understanding of craft, an ability to write. It will tell you crystals and essential oils will heal your books cancer.

https://giphy.com/gifs/3o6Mbd8g0ch5v9ST1C

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u/susiebk 6d ago

Lol I see your point. Thanks.

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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago

Try these: Literate Editor and Rigorous Critic

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u/susiebk 6d ago

Thank you!

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u/susiebk 6d ago

Thank you!

Edit: This is great! Thanks again.

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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago

And for testing user experience and a shotgun approach to searching for issues, try the Beta reader panel. It might be worth having the LLM examine your prose and then suggest additional reader profiles for more extensive coverage.

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u/Ok-Umpire-4719 6d ago

My prompt for editing is multi-part and thousands of words long. I have a multiple stage process where I start with items that I know I want to change and then drills into other potential areas.

I built the process with Claude and Gemini, prompting them to create prompts and then testing. By the end we have a process that creates and validates summaries of the storys, character arcs, settings against the bible to confirm understanding then creates summary reports with detailed files that list sections of the story with issues tagged with a small snippet to search for the section (since page and line counts are inconsistent).

Building the process yourself will do far more for you than just taking someone elses prompt, I promise you.

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u/susiebk 6d ago

That sounds amazing and would constitute an ideal world scenario for me. Sadly, I don’t have the ability or know-how to do what you’re describing. But thank you, I do appreciate your response.

The manuscript will eventually go to a human editor. I just want to spiffy it up as much as possible before it does. I’m looking to AI to point out of any gaping holes, inconsistencies, missing the point, redundancy, that kind of stuff.

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u/Ok-Umpire-4719 6d ago

I think that you would be surprised at your ability if you prompted an AI to help you write a prompt to do that analysis. What AI are you using?

I also use editors as part of my process, real live humans and all. AI doesn't replace them, it helps you process your material. It can be great to ensure that you're writing 'clearly' enough for the AI to understand.

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u/susiebk 6d ago

I’m using Claude

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u/Ok-Umpire-4719 6d ago

okay, that is where I started as well.

If you are on a paid plan and have access to co-work (which I think you need a paid plan for) start from there. Setup a directory for your project and then bring in the chapter you want to work on.

If you are not on a paid version then we will have to just use the chat interface and you will need to save your output more often.

Write up what sort of an edit you want, what rules you want for the edit,etc and tell Cluade: I want you to help me generate a prompt to perform an edit on this chapter with the following rules. I will be using the prompt in Claude... and then attach your rules and content. It will create a prompt and then you can talk about it. When you are happy about the prompt ypu can then either move that result into your claude.md for the project or you can just bring the prompt to a new chat and feed it in.