Do you know, I’ve been writing for 13 years and still struggle with passive voice? It’s a dilemma for many writers. You shouldn’t feel down and out of you get feedback on it.
This is where editing comes in to play. Editing really is a lot more fun than people give it credit. A writer can finally come back to her work and read it almost as if for the first time. She might have been a speed writing demon for months and forgot half of the punch lines she worked in. Suddenly stumbling on them again, she realizes they were pure magic.
Editing can be fun. I thoroughly enjoy the process of tweaking, fixing, and rearranging my books. At first, it used to hurt if I had to delete whole scenes – some I dearly treasured. But after a few years, you come to realize the story is too important to allow a few fun scenes drag it down.
Editing gives me a chance to really hone in on my characters. I want their actions to make sense, and I want their personalities to feel real. It gives me time to get to know them. I’m forced to stop and think and evaluate whether a word or a deed fits with the overarching makeup of the plot. It’s also fun just to spend time with them – some of whom I love, some I love to hate.
Editing provides the experience of viewing the book as a whole. When you’re writing, it tends to come in leaps and bounds, jumping from one scene to the next. With editing, you can smooth out those transitions to make them seamless. It really is a wonderful step in the creative process, and the better you can edit yourself, the less others will edit over you. That’s not a promise, but it’s a pretty good assumption.
Be an editor. It’s rewarding.
This has been,
Fanny T. Crispin
Written Things 