Editing

This is the stage I’m on with The Lost Gift. Editing, rewriting, tweaking all point to adjusting my words on the page to make the story better. I’ve read recently that the first draft is for the writer. All the editing makes the manuscript ready for the reader. One advantage to hand writing my first drafts is that it keeps me from editing on the screen. This lets the story flow… as long as I keep my inner critic silent.

I think there is a line that some writers cross when it comes to editing. No piece of art is “perfect.” In an attempt to make a manuscript “perfect” some writers edit and edit and edit until very little of the original story is left. Some editors make suggestions that might erase the author’s voice out of the piece. Some writers use perfectionism as a reason to never publish. It’s a balance between making the writing as correct as one can and allow it to still carry the theme/mood/tone/voice/heart of the first draft.

If we edit with the intention of improving the writing and stop short of being obsessive or removing our voice from the manuscript, then we can focus on the reader. Who will read the piece? What feelings do we want to invoke in the reader? I approach editing/rewriting with the intention of making the story the best I can, then I let it go. Others may not agree that the story is the best it can be, but art is subjective, and there are no rules saying we all need to agree about art.

How much editing/rewriting happens depends on the first draft. I know authors who write scenes out of order, then put the story in order once all the scenes are written. Others write a detailed outline pages long before they begin their first draft. This if often thought to make the writing go faster with fewer edits to make at the end. I’ve heard from so many sources that linear discovery writers like myself not only write slowly, but we write ourselves into a corner and have ten times as much work to do in the editing phase. That’s not me. I like my process. It works for my projects. How much fixing do you do on a project before sharing it?