6 Actionable Tips: How to Edit Your Own Writing
One of the most common questions that I get during workshops is something like, “How can I more effectively edit my own work?”
Truthfully, this has felt like a hard question to answer.
As a professional writer and editor, I’ve been editing my own and others’ work for well over a decade. I’ve worked as a copy editor and a development editor for everything from print newspapers to literary magazines, digital publications, novels, and textbooks. I’ve spent so many hours engaged in editing that it can feel like something that just happens.
But of course that isn’t true. There’s an underlying structure and process to editing, just as there’s an underlying structure and process to most things we do.
Thank you to everyone who’s asked me this question, because it’s challenged me to sit down and clarify my own editing process!
Out of that reflection came the following six tips. They’re certainly not the full extent of everything I have to say about editing, but I do think they apply pretty universally to different types of writing.
So here you go: Try these strategies to edit your own writing more effectively. And let me know how it goes!
6 Self-Editing Strategies
- Step away from it.
When you find your flow with a piece of writing, it can create a sense of urgency around completing it — like you must hurry up and finish before you run out of creative steam. This might be true for first drafts; by all means, run right alongside the muse to get your work drafted! But when it comes to editing, space is key.
There are several benefits to stepping away from your work for a few days, weeks, or even longer:
- It creates space for you to have more experiences and insights that might inform the final draft.
- It makes room to detach from the original writing so you’re able to spot opportunities for revision.
- It takes you out of the narrow-minded mindset of “must.get.this.done” to a headspace where revisions can take exactly as long as they need to (assuming you’re not working on deadline!).
The takeaway: Before you dive into revisions, spend some time (days, weeks, or longer) apart from your draft.
- Be open to changing your work.
Everyone has a different writing process. Some people are open to (in the words of Anne Lamott) writing “shitty first drafts,” while others like to polish as they go along. In the latter case, it’s easy to cling to what you’ve written the first time, because it’s already met some metric by which you judge your own writing.
It’s true that in rare cases, a first draft might be a final draft. But most of the time, work can be improved. We just have to be willing for it to change.
Here’s an example:
I’ve been working on a collection of personal essays for the past six months. After stepping away from those essays for two months, I workshopped them with a group of writers and sat down to revise them. I had intended for the revised versions to stay pretty close to the original texts, with a few nips and tucks here and there. But what came through me instead was a total overhaul in which the content, themes, and even the genre of these essays changed dramatically. In my opinion, the newer drafts are worlds better than the originals. But if I’d stayed wedded to the original concept and hadn’t been open to serious change, I’d never have gotten to this end result.
The takeaway: Before revising, take some deep breaths and get into a headspace that’s receptive to the work becoming something new.
- Trust the process
If you’re open to serious revisions, there’s going to be a point at which things get very messy. Once you start hacking and slashing your way through a text, there might be a period during which its structure, themes, and so on become convoluted or unclear.
Before starting any revisions, it’s important to know that messiness is a possible and even likely part of that process. Knowing this means you can lean into the messiness and write your way through to the other side.
You will find stable footing and structural and thematic cohesion again. But it might take some time. Don’t get so worried about the mess that you rush to tidy up the text, because you might cut off creative juices just as the going gets good.
The takeaway: Anticipate messiness and trust that this is simply part of the editing process. If you stick with it, the text will knit its way back together (or you’ll realize that it actually wants to become multiple pieces).
- Start with development editing
It’s a heck of a lot easier to edit typos and grammatical mistakes than it is to make big changes to the theme, structure, or tone of a piece of writing. That’s exactly why many people fixate on editing the tiny errors in their work in lieu of making larger changes. We tell ourselves that we’re revising, when really we’re just nitpicking.
The antidote to getting stuck in the weeds? Tell yourself to ignore those weeds until the very end. Make a conscious choice to focus on more substantive revisions (called “development editing”) before diving into copy edits.
The takeaway: Focus on substantive edits first, and ignore typos and grammatical issues until the end of the editing process.
- Enlist a second (or a third, or a fourth) pair of eyes
This might seem like a no-brainer, but writers often resist asking other people to read their work in draft form.
There are several possible explanations for this: We might feel too vulnerable, fear other people’s judgement, or worry that we’re burdening someone by asking them to read our work. Or we simply might not know who to ask.
Nevertheless, it’s worth working up the gumption to put ourselves out there and ask for help. Because the fact of the matter is that other people can often see things about our own work that we simply can’t. Additionally, other people can give us a sense of whether the tone and meaning that we’re trying to convey is actually speaking through the page.
For example:
I recently had a writer friend point out that I’d used the same word seven times in the span of two paragraphs. I hadn’t even noticed! As soon as she pointed it out, I realized that I was anxious about whether my reader would “get” the point, and so I’d been hammering it too hard. I immediately reduced my usage of that word, and it made the work more dynamic.
The takeaway: Ask a trusted friend, partner, writing group, or professional editor to take a look at your work
- Leave copy editing to the end
Okay, my fellow grammar nerds, now’s your time to shine!
You’ve stepped away from your work, sat down to revise with an open mind, completed developmental edits, and enlisted a second pair of eyes to read over your work. Now’s the time to break out that fine-tooth comb and do a close, line-by-line and word-by-word edit of the text.
Not a grammar nerd? No problem. You could always enlist the help of a friend, family member, colleague, or professional editor. Some of these options might cost a bit up front, but clean copy pays for itself when it comes to making a favorable impression at literary magazines and other publication outlets.
The takeaway: Save copy editing until the end so you don’t get lost in the weeds. When it comes time to copy edit, make it a priority!
Note: There’s some debate about the merits of copy editing while you go versus waiting until the end. I have come to advocate for leaving copy edits til the last stage of editing, but you could find that a different process works for you.
Final Thoughts on Editing Your Own Writing
In many cases, the primary challenge involved in self-editing is one of perspective. It can be hard to get enough space from our work that we’re able to view it through anything close to an objective lens.
That’s why many of my editing tips focus on creating space and shifting your mindset — because even though these aspects of self-editing aren’t super concrete, they’re critical to producing a dynamic final draft.
What are your go-to editing strategies? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!