Editing yourself

As I've mentioned recently, I've been working hard on editing, both the short story and Ashes and Bones. Editing a completed draft is one of my favorite things. (Note that I make a distinction between completed and finished, where completed means it's a readable first draft and finished means a piece of work has been revised several times, polished, and buffed to a high gloss...well, finish. It's the difference between a chair thrown together with two-by-fours and something by Thomas Chippendale; the first might be functional, but it's not anything you want to look at for a long time.)

As satisfying as editing is, it's also a bit of a two-edged sword, because, like most elements of writing, you need to learn to overcome yourself. With editing, you have to face your bad habits: the overused word, the fact that all the secondary characters' names start with "M," the hiccups of continuity, the little things that happen when you're focused on getting a story out of your head and onto the page. That's okay, because in that initial rush, the plot and the emotion--or whatever starts a story for you--has to be paramount, and those bad habits are crutches to get you through the first draft. Once you get that draft down, you can clean up the language, improve a point, reinforce a subplot, and add nuance. You can do anything in the world.

Editing is great because you can take the stuff that makes you cringe and FIX it. Is there anything better, for a perfectionist? While I'm editing, I get this weird and satisfying feeling of bustling domesticity--tidying and repairing--that I assure you does not extend to the real world. You can take a clunky idea and streamline it or use a new metaphor or get rid of it altogether. Removing a word or line or paragraph or even an extraneous character can be a thrill. I'm not much of a gardener, but I do understand the importance of pruning, clearing away the overgrowth and dead wood; it's a lesson I continue to learn. Or it could be the opposite problem, where you think you're being all kinds of obvious, but the point you're trying to make isn't apparent to your reader.

I can't overstate the importance of having first readers you trust to respond to your work in a thoughtful, critical fashion (not just "I love it!" or "It's dumb," but a response that tackles the virtues and flaws in a piece in such a way that you can make it better). Even reading your work aloud to yourself helps, because you notice when something sounds awkward or when you're out of breath and need to break down a sentence. There's a lot to be said for getting past any shyness you might have about showing or hearing your work. You're going to have to do it sometime.

There's a true sense of power in learning to spot your own weaknesses and improve them. And no one ever has to see that crappy first draft, because you have the opportunity to refine the emotion that inspired the story. Eventually, you'll even train yourself out of some of those bad habits.