How to Edit Your Own Writing

Four words: wait until you’re done.

I’ve been working on the same story for almost three years now.  It’s a young adult novel about a young girl named Theo Baez and currently it’s driving me insane.

You see, I promised myself that I would finished this book this year.  But now it’s December 4th, the end of the year is fast approaching, and I still have three chapters (which is the entire conclusion) to write.  It’s been a few months since I worked on the story and I left those three chapters initially because I didn’t know what to write.  Of course, the intervening months haven’t helped.

And so I decided to go back through the entire story, editing as I read it, refreshing myself on the plot, and planning to reach the end of what I have and keep storming ahead.

This was a mistake.

See, I forgot an important distinction that I make as a writer.  There is the writing phase and then there is the editing phase.  At least for me, these two phases don’t mesh.  At all.

The writing phase is like a sketch.  You plow through the entire thing forcing out words line by line or watching in amazement as they gush through your fingers.  At this stage it is critical that you do not re-read your writing.  If you do, you probably won’t like it.  You’ll want to edit the hell out of it before the entire idea even exists or you’ll become so ashamed by your own writing that you’ll just stop all together.

That’s where I am with Theo Baez.

I love the world, the characters, the main thought, but reading through (especially after some of the great young adult books I’ve been reading recently) it feels juvenile, stinted, and just generally unpleasant.  I still don’t know how the story is going to end and I’m so caught up in the details of the writing that I can’t pull away to get there.

So for those of you who are wondering when and how to start editing your writing, make sure you finish it first.  Get out the whole idea, even if it’s really rough.  Actually, particularly if it’s really rough.  Let the story/piece of writing come into the world in it’s own squalling, ugly way.

Then let it sit for a while.  Ignore it until it needs you, or until you need it.  When you begin to feel the pang of separation and are eager to go back to it, willing to forgive the possibly awful writing because you love the idea so much, you are ready to start editing.

Print it out, sit down with a fancy pen, and read your own story as if you’ve never seen it before.

But, whatever you do, wait until you’re done.