To Write is Human, To Edit is Divine
Sometimes even when you think your latest story is going magnificently, it doesn’t turn out to be nearly as magnificent when you go back and read over what you’ve written.
Little things, most of the time. Big things sometimes. Like how I somehow managed to completely forget plot in the middle of my new story “The Boy Ran” and somehow wrote several nearly identical chapters that could be summarized by “We woke up, we walked, we went to sleep.”
I finished the story up toward the end of last week, ending up at somewhere around 42,000 words. I usually try to put a few weeks between finishing up a story and going back to read over it again, so that it’s new and fresh to me when I start the initial proofreading process. However, this time I tried a new writing method where I didn’t go back and read over anything at all the whole time I was writing. I’d been having a lot of little projects that I’d started and never finished – generally because I start second-guessing myself about halfway through.
So, I refused to go back and re-read while the story was in progress. I would get it finished first. And I did. If nothing else, this method has worked to ensure that my doubts didn’t get in the way of my writing. However, it also means that this first draft is a lot less polished than I’m used to dealing with when I go through my first proofread.
For one thing, there’s those repetitive chapters, which have now been cut out almost entirely, except for a few gems of paragraphs and dialogue that I condensed down a great deal. I just cut almost 20,000 words out of my story at one go.
So yeah, that novel? It won’t be a novel by the time I’m done with it, I don’t think. Going back over my plot and organization, I realize that this is a story that is probably best told in a short form anyway. It’s a departure from my usual writing, particularly considering the age of the protagonist and the prospective audience. It’s also set in a world that is extremely close to home, dealing with some extremely difficult subjects.
I know that it’s possibly one of the most honest and difficult stories I’ve ever written. Perhaps, like dark chocolate, it is a story best enjoyed in small amounts. The words are getting in the way right now. I’m hoping that by the time I’m done with editing (and sending it out to my betas for their critiques) that will no longer be the case.
I think I got too caught up on hitting that big word-goal and lost the focus of my story in the process. Sometimes a story doesn’t need to have a lot of words to make a point.
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To put your title in my own words:
Everybody writes, Writers edit.
I remember the first time I really took the idea of editing seriously. It was like an epiphany. Nothing really prepares you for how terrible your own writing is, and how satisfying it can be to polish it.
Your point about second guessing yourself due to re-reading stuff written earlier is an interesting one. I may try not-reading myself, see how it affects my productivity.
It's a good way to make sure you get things done, but like I said, you end up with a much less polished first draft.
However, as someone famous once said: "The first draft doesn't have to be good, it just has to be written." Sometimes getting the thing done is the big obstacle, and like an uncut gemstone, it can be polished into something beautiful later.