For example, the line edit might be impossible without detailed editing about major problems that include characterization issues, plot problems, believability issues, overall pacing, rough or trite dialog, and so on. If there are major problems with the story, the editor should stop as soon as the extent of these problems has been identified. This may mean stopping after a detailed edit of only Chapter 1, with references to other, skimmed areas of the manuscript. Or it may mean stopping after a detailed edit of the first two or three chapters. How much editing will be required depends on the subtlety of the problems.
Vigorous writing is concise.
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his senteces short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. At any rate, the editor should not be making specific comments on the rest of the manuscript until the writer understands just how extensive the major problems are. Comments about a wording problem on Pg 289 could easily become moot because, for example, the writer deleted that scene, rewrote so the wording problem disappeared, or expanded the dialog so that the wording is adequately explained. In general, the book should go through a general story edit, then a specific story edit, and only then a line edit.