The benefits of editing later
All writing, be it a novel, a short story, a blog, or an email will need reviewing and editing before it is sent anywhere. Otherwise, you’re liable to come across careless or foolish. Editing is key to crafting, it might be rather dull and certainly not feel as creative as the actual drafting, but it is immeasurably important.
Editing gives our voices clarity and sharpness, it makes what we are trying to say actually make sense and lastly, it improves our content. I have found several times on an edit that what I was trying to say has become muddied in my brains rambling pathways and only with concise editing can I retrieve that tiny nugget of thought within the mess.
Think of editing as polishing an ornament or sharpening a knife, both the ornament and the knife exist on their own, but the polishing and sharpening improve them. After all, a blunt knife is both unimpressive and kind of useless and a dull lifeless ornament depreciates in value with every dust mote. It reminds me of a morning that I’d been dragged to a car boot sale by my granddad, it was cold, raining a bit and far, far too early on a Sunday morning. But I wandered the aisles and saw something, it was a pair of statues. It was immediately obvious they had gone many years without love, they were dull, filthy and battered. But I bought them, and I spent a lot of time washing, dusting and polishing them up and now they are beautiful and sit in my dining room. That is editing. Seeing the potential in something and scraping away the dirt and grime until it can shine again.
Continue reading “Writing: Benefits of Editing later”
Letters from a Horror Writer 