Why You Need to Edit

There are people out there who subscribe to the idea that editing kills a creative flow. That it destroys the author's original message, or that it somehow tarnishes the work. Well I'm here to say that not editing is what destroys your message and kills your work. In fact, it's just about the worst possible thing you can do as a writer.

There is a reason that sitting down and "just writing" is called stream of consciousness writing. It's a very creative art form but it's also usually not very good, and often makes sense only to the person who let it flow out onto the page.

The problem is that (in my opinion) most of our writing originates in stream of consciousness writing. Think about it. We sit down, we write, and we put onto paper what's in our heads. It's how we get out of our own way and allow our creativity to shine through.

But the problem comes when you don't go back and look at that writing. Writing is a craft, after all, and that means there are certain conventions that need to be followed. If nothing else the writing needs to be error free and follow some sort of flow. Even better is, well, making sure it actually makes sense to someone else and that it says what you intended for it to say.

If you can't step back and look at your writing objectively because you don't want to risk "destroying" your work, then there is a good chance that one of the following things will happen:

• The writing will be full of problems
• The writing will be unreadable to anyone but you
• The writing will not tell the story you wanted to tell
• The writing will be labeled as crap, and nobody will read it

I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that editing usually makes or breaks a book. It's the same for any kind of writing - the first draft is never good enough to publish. Ever. Period.

Now there are varying shades of good and bad. Some first drafts come out in a flash of brilliance and are almost there from the start. But some are so far away from readable that they need to be completely rewritten.

All first drafts are called first drafts because they need editing.

As I've looked through some books by indie authors I can tell very quickly who edited their work and who didn't. And it's those people who give the rest of us a bad name by publishing material that nobody would have even looked at 15 years ago. But maybe that's my personal beef as a professional writer who really works hard on her craft. I don't know.

The point of this post is...edit! Edit if you want your work to be good. Edit if you want your work to be understood. Edit if you want your work to be bought and read. Just edit. Having our work read and understood is the reason we all write, isn't it?