The Joys of Editing

Believe it or not, this is not a sarcastic title. I actually really, really enjoy editing. It may be one of my favorite parts of the writing process. And really, you CANNOT write without editing. They demand each other.

But I do mean editing. Not proofreading.

I think this is an important distinction to make. Proofreading is that thing that kept your heartrate elevated whenever you saw your English teacher whip out the red pencil and start shaking their head as they read your 9th grade essay.

Editing is something else.

Editing is looking at the pulse of the words, and making sure they bring the work to life. Coherent life. Not Frankenstein's monster's life. Unless you're going for that, in which case... you do you.

But the reason why I, personally, love editing so much is because it gives me the opportunity to not only smooth out my fiction, but also turn over more ideas. If a piece of writing is like a jigsaw puzzle, then editing is finding the other half of the pieces that fell on the floor when you were so busy looking for that one corner piece you just started sweeping your arms over the table, damn the casualties your sleeves inflicted.

(I'm also very passionate about jigsaw puzzles, and am still traumatized from the time my dog ate one of the pieces of a 5,000 piece puzzel.)

But editing.

Editing requires writers to focus on their words with a critical eye. You can't look at your work and go, "Well, this is no good." That's a self-destructive path, believe me. What you have to do instead is say, "Well, this is a start. How can I make it better?"

I love editing because it lets me do that. It frees me to rethink plot moments, to find the links between character actions that were previously disjointed, to solidify why the world I've built is turning the way it is. I don't write flawless work, I'll be the first to say that, but I love editing my work. I love the thrill that comes with figuring out a plot hole or smoothing out a paragraph or even a full chapter that took months to finally nail down. It gives me great satisfaction to do those things.

There is the flip side, where editing will demand that you cut things that just weren't working, no matter how much you love them. I think that phrase "kill your darlings" gets tossed around a lot when discussing this aspect of editing, though I've found that killing darlings doesn't mean abandoning favorites. It just means that, sometimes, you have to let go.