DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING & TRANSLATION INTEGRITY: Our Process
Overview
Audience & Narrative Landscape
Audience & Narrative Landscape
I served as the developmental editor for Ukrainian author Oleg Veretskiy’s first book in the Tales of the Wandering Mists trilogy, collaborating closely with the publisher, Pierce Press; translator, Marina Palenyy; and our editorial team throughout the manuscript development process.
The project involved strengthening the manuscript's stru
I served as the developmental editor for Ukrainian author Oleg Veretskiy’s first book in the Tales of the Wandering Mists trilogy, collaborating closely with the publisher, Pierce Press; translator, Marina Palenyy; and our editorial team throughout the manuscript development process.
The project involved strengthening the manuscript's structure, characterization, thematic coherence, worldbuilding, dialogue, and emotional clarity, while preserving Oleg’s unique voice, symbolism, and vision for his trilogy.
When Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Oleg put his writing career on hold to support his country’s fight for freedom and joined the military. The trilogy emerged from his imagination, as well as from his own lived experience and his hope for his people.
My role required balancing literary rigor with emotional sensitivity while helping shape a fantasy world that was believable, coherent, and immersive for English-speaking readers.
Audience & Narrative Landscape
Audience & Narrative Landscape
Audience & Narrative Landscape
The intended audience included:
- middle-grade and young adult readers
- readers drawn to fantasy and fairy tales
- children navigating trauma and grief
- audiences interested in stories that use symbolism and escapism as vehicles to explore emotional and moral truths
A major challenge of the project involved ensuring that the emotional and moral trut
The intended audience included:
- middle-grade and young adult readers
- readers drawn to fantasy and fairy tales
- children navigating trauma and grief
- audiences interested in stories that use symbolism and escapism as vehicles to explore emotional and moral truths
A major challenge of the project involved ensuring that the emotional and moral truths of the story remained clear and accessible amidst the complexity of its magical worlds and systems, symbolic creatures, layered timelines, and nonlinear narrative structure.
Consequently, our work focused on fantasy worldbuilding, as well as helping readers remain emotionally anchored to protagonist Lisa’s inner life and character arc.
Strategic Goals
Audience & Narrative Landscape
Strategic Goals
The editorial process focused on:
- strengthening the consistency of third-person limited point of view
- deepening Lisa’s characterization and internal dialogue
- strengthening characterization of supporting figures and magical creatures
- clarifying the rules and logic of the fantasy worlds
- improving dialogue cadence, rhythm, and emotional realism
- gr
The editorial process focused on:
- strengthening the consistency of third-person limited point of view
- deepening Lisa’s characterization and internal dialogue
- strengthening characterization of supporting figures and magical creatures
- clarifying the rules and logic of the fantasy worlds
- improving dialogue cadence, rhythm, and emotional realism
- grounding magical scenes with sensory and emotional specificity
- clarifying thematic arcs related to grief, sacrifice, and identity
- reducing reader confusion during complex scenes and battle sequences
- strengthening narrative coherence within the broader trilogy structure
- preserving the manuscript’s symbolic, spiritual, and mythic dimensions while improving accessibility for readers
Narrative & Editorial Approach
Narrative & Editorial Approach
Narrative & Editorial Approach
Throughout the editorial process, I had to remind myself of the importance of emotional grounding, narrative clarity, and psychological realism within fantasy storytelling.
Our editorial conversations centered largely on questions of immersion and coherence:
- What emotional truths anchor the fantasy world?
- Do the magical systems feel internal
Throughout the editorial process, I had to remind myself of the importance of emotional grounding, narrative clarity, and psychological realism within fantasy storytelling.
Our editorial conversations centered largely on questions of immersion and coherence:
- What emotional truths anchor the fantasy world?
- Do the magical systems feel internally consistent?
- Are readers emotionally connected to protagonist, Lisa, throughout the journey?
- Do supporting characters possess clear motivations and distinguishing characteristics?
- Are awe and wonder balanced with clarity and narrative grounding?
We paid particular attention to:
- strengthening Lisa’s developmental arcs
- ensuring magical creatures had distinct personalities, voices, motivations, and emotional textures
- clarifying symbolic systems and worldbuilding logic
- balancing mystery with reader orientation
- reducing exposition-heavy dialogue
- and helping fantasy elements feel vivid, sensory, and emotionally resonant
This editorial process involved extensive collaboration with the publisher, translator, and editorial team regarding chronology, symbolism, cultural references with an accompanying glossary, and the trilogy’s nonlinear narrative structure.
Guiding Questions
Narrative & Editorial Approach
Narrative & Editorial Approach
Throughout the project, our team rooted our work in these guiding questions:
- Does the reader remain grounded while entering unfamiliar worlds?
- Are the magical systems coherent and emotionally meaningful?
- Does Lisa still feel like a real child with an authentic inner life?
- Are the supporting characters distinct enough to feel memorable and nec
Throughout the project, our team rooted our work in these guiding questions:
- Does the reader remain grounded while entering unfamiliar worlds?
- Are the magical systems coherent and emotionally meaningful?
- Does Lisa still feel like a real child with an authentic inner life?
- Are the supporting characters distinct enough to feel memorable and necessary for moving the plot forward?
- Is the dialogue serving the story or slowing it down?
- Are themes emerging organically rather than being over explained?
- Does the story preserve awe and wonder while remaining believable?
- Are the rules of the worlds clear enough for readers to remain immersed in them?
- Does the manuscript balance symbolic complexity with narrative clarity?
- Is the emotional weight of grief, sacrifice, courage, and transformation being fully realized?
Outcome
Narrative & Editorial Approach
Translation Integrity
The resulting editorial process helped deepen the emotional grounding, thematic coherence, characterization, and readability of the manuscript while preserving the originality, symbolism, cultural complexity, and imagination of Oleg’s worlds.
The foundation built during the developmental editing and translation collaboration process contri
The resulting editorial process helped deepen the emotional grounding, thematic coherence, characterization, and readability of the manuscript while preserving the originality, symbolism, cultural complexity, and imagination of Oleg’s worlds.
The foundation built during the developmental editing and translation collaboration process contributed directly to the book earning multiple awards and distinctions following publication, while also helping preserve the emotional, cultural-linguistic, symbolic, and philosophical dimensions of the story across languages in ways that remained aligned with the spirit of the original text.
In the end, the collaborative work helped support the emergence of a fantasy narrative that blends awe, wonder, danger, transformation, and emotional depth through Lisa’s heroic and relatable coming-of-age journey.
Translation Integrity
Narrative & Editorial Approach
Translation Integrity
A major focus of the editorial process involved ensuring that the manuscript’s symbolism, emotional nuances, fantasy concepts, and culturally significant elements were translated in ways that remained respectfully aligned with Oleg’s original intention and voice.
Although the trilogy is shaped by Ukrainian cultural history, mythology, spir
A major focus of the editorial process involved ensuring that the manuscript’s symbolism, emotional nuances, fantasy concepts, and culturally significant elements were translated in ways that remained respectfully aligned with Oleg’s original intention and voice.
Although the trilogy is shaped by Ukrainian cultural history, mythology, spirituality, and symbolism, the books themselves were originally written in Russian—reflecting the complex cultural-linguistic realities shaped by Russian-language schooling and political control during the Soviet era.
Because translator Marina Palenyy is fluent in both Ukrainian and Russian, our collaborative editorial process often involved navigating not simply translation across languages, but also layers of cultural, historical, symbolic, and conceptual meaning embedded within them.
Many editorial conversations centered on preserving:
- emotional resonance
- narrative tone
- symbolic meaning
- cadence and rhythm
- character voice
- and the psychological atmosphere of scenes across languages
Particular care was taken to ensure that culturally meaningful words, ideas, metaphors, characterizations, and symbols retained their significance and narrative purpose without becoming flattened or disconnected from the spirit of the original text.