Why is editing so important? Should you edit by yourself, or hire an editor? How do you even know what to look for when editing? All of these questions will be answered in today's blog post, along with useful tips on establishing an effective editing process.
The importance of editing.
Although writing your project is the hard part, it all comes down to the editing. The fact of the matter is, anyone can have a great idea. But not everybody can develop that great idea into a great story--at least, not without a second, third, and fourth draft, a complete scrap, and several rewrites later.
If you're skilled enough to write a first and final draft with not a single touch of editing, I'd love for you to give me your secret. But if you're like the rest of us, you'll likely have to edit your writing.
Whether or not the editing is good can quite literally make or break your writing! You may have a great idea, but the first draft you attempt to convey that idea in may not always be the best approach. After all, as you write, you likely look back and change things because you've found a better way to do it. You may not necessarily change your ideas, but you probably find different ways to structure them, and even different words to convey them.
In the end, once your writing is edited, it's polished and at its prime. That's when you feel satisfied with how your idea is being conveyed into writing. And for that reason, editing is the most important step in the writing process!
Before we dive into different ways you can edit, I would first like to offer you this very important tip: DO NOT EDIT AS YOU WRITE!
I repeat, do not go back and change your wording and structure until after you've finished writing. This can be as big as writing out your entire novel before looking back on the mess you've created to give it order, or as small as ignoring the little red lines that appear under typos as you write papers and journals.
By ignoring the mistakes, you allow your ideas to flow interrupted, which can actually help you finish the piece before you feel the need to scrap it all over and re-start again. Next time you write, I highly recommend trying this out--you'll go farther than you've ever gone with your writing before!
Macro-Editing (Looking at the big picture)
Once you finish writing, whether it is a full-length novel or a short one-paged journal, you want to look back on it as a whole. This is called macro-editing. This is done by looking at chunks of your writing and deciding whether or not it's in a cohesive order, seeing if it all works together in a straight line, or if you need to restructure things.
Big picture revisions helps the plot make sense, so it's important not to skip this step of editing. The way you're going to do it is by making sure you have a physical copy of your manuscript (print it out if it was typed), and reading through it carefully without making any revisions.
Once you've read through it, go through it again and this time use your Big Red Pen: delete pointless words, sentences, or chunks of writing that offer no purpose. Change excessive, detailed descriptions into more simplistic words. Make a list of the all the important details (whether they are story scenes that go in a chronological order, or important thoughts you want to list out). By doing so, you can go through this list and order them in the best way that makes sense, plucking out the irrelevant scenes and finding the holes that need to be filled.
With all of the moving around, cutting out, and filling in being completed, you can then re-write your manuscript in the cohesive way that it best makes sense.
Micro-Editing (Zooming in on the details)
Once you are satisfied with the structure of your writing and find that it makes sense, you need to go in and edit line-by-line. This is known as micro-editing: finding specific details and making sure that your grammar, punctuation, syntax, and word choice make sense. This type of revision can only happen after you've finished with the macro-edits.
In order to effectively edit the details, use computer programs that can point out any grammatical, punctual, or syntactical mistakes. Writing programs typically informs the writer of any errors with colorful underlines and markups.
Once you've finished all your computer revisions, print out your manuscript and go over it again with that same Big Red Pen, and try to fix anything that doesn't make sense to both the human brain and to the writing itself based on its specific needs.
Additionally, to be an effective detail-editor, you must know the general rules of the English language (or whatever language you are writing in). This can help you to identify and fix any errors you may have, or change certain words/sentence structures for better options. After all, if your goal is to have another person read your writing in the future, you want to make your writing as generally concise and understandable as possible without losing your voice and message.
The Role of an Editor
Editors are extremely important to writers in that they do all of the heavy work. They determine whether or not your ideas can be marketable (in book publishing), get your work approved by publishing houses, suggests and makes plot-level changes, develops ideas from the initial draft to the final draft, corrects any grammatical/punctuation/etc errors, verifies and fact-checks your writing, checks for consistency in logic, and always proofreads with the needs of the audience in mind.
Editors are often experienced and highly-trained. They know what to look for and how to help a writer. If you're looking into publishing your writing, working with an editor is often one of the best routes you can go.
Editing by Yourself
If you are not in a position to invest in an editor, you can certainly edit your own manuscript by yourself. All it takes is a lot of patience and practice. And let me tell you, try to avoid judging yourself too harshly if at all, because we are all our own worst critics.
Just make sure you always have an extra pair of eyes or two that can do you a solid favor and read through your manuscript. Having outside eyes, even if they are untrained, can greatly impact the quality of your final draft.
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