Editting Are Necessary. But Don’t Let It Interrupt Your Creativity.

You know what the worst part about editing is? Everything.

Okay, that’s not fair to people who enjoy the editing process. A concept so foreign to me I literally can’t fathom it. Still, there are those (several in my own writer’s circle) who really enjoy the process. And thank goodness for them. Because editing is one of the most necessary parts of the process in bringing a great story to light.

It is also humbling, minutia obsessed, difficult, and a reminder that your ‘brilliant’ rough draft is at best a wet sand castle badly in need of a true sculptor’s touch. Hm. I guess I already covered that with ‘humbling,’ but let’s face it, editing can take it out of ya.

Which is exactly why editing should be saved for the end of a project. The ‘we’ll fix it in post’ phase. Editing requires you to take a mechanical approach to your work. It is a matter of gears and orderly movement. And while there are some practices that allow you to more reliably access creativity, I’ve found that creative energy tends to be more organic. Flowing water and sprawling trees, as opposed to editing’s glass and steel structure.

Metaphor aside, this is why I make the argument that editing a rough draft as you go is absolute folly. Many first time writers fall into this practice, and it has a deleterious effect on their writing process, pace, and motivation. Editing is necessary, but it should not come at the expense of the creative process.

Let’s take a moment to discuss how and why ‘in draft’ editing occurs, and then why this can negatively impact a writer’s flow. As someone who struggles with this himself, I feel qualified to speak to some of this, and I’ll share my own struggles with taking myself out of a several thousand word flow when I stumble over a single word- and how that stumble becomes an obsession. We’ll also take a look at other creative pursuits and show how detail hyperfocus can slow down or derail those types of projects as well. I’ll do my best to connect it to writing. Bear with me.

Most often, in-draft editing happens in one of two ways. First is the actual act of every few manuscript pages, or after a certain word count, the writer sits down and edits what they have already done. This seems harmless, and possibly even productive, but for a lot of writers, this actually becomes a drag on their productivity. Creativity tends to work best when it is being consistently accessed, and if every five hundred or five thousand words you stop to take a critical look at what you’re working on, you clamp that creativity pipeline closed.

Rather than allowing yourself to ‘just write’, you’re focusing on getting it ‘just right.’ And whether we like it or not, editing forces us to confront our mistakes, which can take its toll on a writer’s confidence. Suddenly you’re not looking at your work as a beautiful, albeit messy, tapestry, but instead focusing on the individual fibers and whether or not they are of comparable quality to the weaver’s next door.

Additionally, a piece of work evolves over time. It changes as fresh, new ideas hit you, and often times the more you work on a piece, the tighter it becomes. Have you ever seen a first-time crocheter make a scarf? They’re almost always charmingly lopsided, with the starting side much wider than the end. That’s because their needlework becomes tighter and more refined the longer they are working on it. Their own ability evolves. Your writing is very similar. Even within the context of a single piece.

When you’re working on the broad strokes of your rough draft, editing as you go stops you from even getting the most basic parts of your story down on paper. This can mean that even though you edited the crap out of that first thousand words for continuity errors, you likely have forgotten about some changes made by the time you complete the next thousand. You edit again, and by the time you reach the end of your ten thousand word short story, you have ten sections of immaculately worded ‘chunks’ that have lost the overall narrative with one another.

Another form in-draft editing can take is in the form of single word obsession. I fight this beast every single day, and I would by lying if I said I didn’t often end up in the gullet of the dragon, roasting alive. I’m getting better at recognizing this phenomenon, but it's a journey.

Single word obsession occurs when you stop the flow of a sentence to seek out the absolute perfect next word. Like sit there and stare at your draft wondering how many other ways there are to say ‘experience’ (this comes from recent personal… experience. Dammit, I learned nothing.). You refuse to move on until that word hits you and artfully fills out the sentence in question. And instead of writing, you find yourself pontificating, fixating, and eventually distractifying. Just exactly how many stars are there in the outer rim of the Andromeda galaxy…………. Hm. Wait, where was I?

Okay, jokes aside, there are two ways to deal with single word obsession. One, make liberal use of a thesaurus. That’s what this writer does. Plug that vexing word into a database, and replace it with the first most interesting word you stumble across. This can lead to some issues with words having very similar definitions, but not actually fitting the context of the sentence- we’ll deal with that in a moment.

Another option is to stop the spiral thinking and ask yourself why this one stupid word is so important? Are you worried that you’ve overused the word already? Is it literally what the crux of your entire draft hinges on? No? Then maybe just put in a placeholder word and move on. More than likely you’re trying to craft the mythical ‘perfect’ first draft, which, to be clear, you are not. No one does. That’s what editing is for. AFTER the first draft is finished.

Editing in post is the perfect time to find the perfect words. It is a good opportunity to clean up words that are ‘sound alikes’ to one you were wrestling with, but don’t actually fit a sentence (I told you we’d get back to that). Editing in post is exactly when you should look at how many times you’ve used a particular adjective or verb and figure out different ways to say those words and do some replacements.

If you are constantly stopping your creative flow to figure out how to say one single word a thousand different ways, you’re developing an outstanding vocabulary. You know what you’re not doing? Writing!

Ever seen a comic book artist bring a character to life? Go check out a time-lapse video of one on YouTube- it’s a stunning process. It’s also perfectly illustrative of what we’re discussing here. Illustrative, get it? Ha.

Wow, the jokes are coming fast and loose this morning. But seriously, what do you notice about their process? Do they begin with a character’s left eye and draw every single eyelash in stunning detail? Do they begin with the creases on the character’s fingers, or the torn fringe at the edge of their cape?

No! Because the start of the process is just a bunch of messy lines and pipes that vaguely resemble the shape the character will eventually take, and by degrees the image is refined. More detailed lines come in, sharper edges are added, and characteristic touches flourish. Artists never start with the details- they start with the broader picture so they even know where the details are supposed to go, and what they’re contributing to.

Now think of your writing the same way. If you are editing in-draft, you might draw the most incredible superhero face of all time, but if that face doesn’t fit the rest of the body you’ve created, it will look out of place. If you are obsessing over a single word, you might be drawing a really, really impressive belt clasp… but where’s the rest of the picture? Getting your piece down on paper means allowing your creativity to be messy and flowing at first. That picture is going to take shape, but you have to know what you’re even filling in before you can ink and color it.

Yikes, the last part of that metaphor was a little rough. I think you get the picture.

I told you the jokes were coming fast and loose this morning.

One last note on all of this. As I have said before, and I will die on this hill, there is absolutely no wrong way to write a draft. There isn’t. Your first draft is, or should be, the most unbounded creative expression you can allow to blast out of you.

If in-draft editing works for you, don’t stop doing it!

This is more guideline for writers who are struggling to finish a draft, and are looking for ways to cut themselves free from their own roadblocks. Even within that context, I want to emphasize that there is no right or wrong speed for writing. Your draft is going to happen exactly as quickly as it can, or as slowly as you want it to. I often wish I could go back and rewrite first drafts just to enjoy the experience of writing them again! So don’t worry about writing slowly or writing quickly, or whatever.

Just. Write.

Look, there are a lot of shapes that in-draft editing can take, these are just a few examples. And again, if this process works for you, this is not meant to change your style. But if you’re finding that a draft feels bound up or like it is trying to bust free, take a moment to examine your process. Are you getting caught up in the details? Are you obsessing over a single word, or going back over the pages again and again focusing on the ‘mistakes’? Give this a shot. Stop editing every other sentence, every other page, every other word, whatever it is. Give yourself creative license to make messy mistakes. You’ll fix it in post.

Don’t try and write just right. Just write.

Disclaimer: this is an off-the-cuff piece that benefited from almost no editing, and Grammarly is telling me I have over 100 considerations for potential edits. I’ll come back in and fix all that later.

If you’re interested in some of my work that has benefited from more editing (but is still imperfect!) check out my fantasy saga at www.krogthebattleprince.com