If there is one part of the writing process that makes writers tear their hair out more than any other, it’s editing. Writing the first draft is great, because you get to smash out your brand new story idea with wild abandon, pouring your heart out onto the page without worrying about whether it’s any good or not. The moment you come to edit it however, you get that awful revelation that the book you poured your heart and soul into isn’t actually all that good, and now you have to try and take that jumbled mess and turn it into the shiny, perfect novel that you see in your head. It can be disheartening to start with, and downright difficult and frustrating as you try to get to grips with everything that needs fixing.
When I started writing, editing was definitely my least favourite part of the process. I hated even the very thought of having to go back and fix up the enormous mess I’d just made in my first draft. Mostly, I think I hated it because I wasn’t very good at it. Making any sort of progress felt like dragging myself up a sheer cliff by my fingernails. I hated it to the point that I wrote first draft after first draft just to avoid having to think about editing. If I was getting all these words on the page then obviously I was being super productive? Luckily for me, at some point I realised that there was no way I could publish a book without some form of editing, which meant I have to buckle down and learn how to edit. And I made a huge discovery.
Editing is great.
It’s not that it isn’t hard, or that I don’t find it incredibly frustrating at times, because both of those facts are still undeniably true. I have plenty of days where I sit and just stare at the mess I’ve created on the page, tugging on my braid as I try to figure out how on earth I’m suppose to turn this monkey-drivel into something anyone would want to read, paving over plot holes as deep as the Marianas Trench. But in general, editing is amazing because it’s the part of the writing process that turns an idea into a book. First drafts are just you pouring your initial thoughts out onto the page in whatever form they occur to you. It’s all about that raw inspiration. The story spills out onto the page, but it’s a massive, tangled mess that barely resembles the perfect vision you have of it when you started.
Editing is where the magic happens. It’s where you smooth out the tangled plot threads into something that makes sense. It’s where you streamline the action and pack it full of tension so that all of a sudden you’re riveted to the page in breathless anticipation. Editing gives characters their spark and unique personalities. This is the time when the dialogue springs to life with all its wit and heart. First drafts give you a pile clay to work with. Editing turns it into a work of art. It might take a long time, and a lot of thought, and it might be frustrating, but editing is the most rewarding thing. When you see your book taking shape, looking like a real book that you could pick up off the shelf and read, that’s when I love editing the most. It’s so rewarding, seeing the progress my book makes over the course of a round or two of edits.
The other thing to remember about editing is that the more you do it, the better you get. I’m by no means a perfect editor. I still have many things to learn, but because I’ve done so much editing by this point I’m so much better than I was at the start. I don’t struggle as much, because I know how this works. I know how books are constructed. I know the elements I need to make sure my book has, and I know my own bad habits. The more I do it, the more fun it is to find just the right way to write a plot twist, the right words to convey an emotion, and the right spark of life for a character. I used to be in the camp that hated editing, but honestly, I’ve been converted, simply because the moment you see the improvement editing makes, all that effort becomes so worthwhile. Editing is the best part of writing, because it turns a raw idea into a polished book you can share, and sharing my stories is why I write in the first place.
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