Balancing Your Love/Hate Relationship with Self-Editing

You did it. The draft is set. You’ve typed The End and can finally put this beast of an endeavor to bed. Never to be plagued by its myriad paths, the subtle turns or its exceptionally developed characters again. Time for your readers to see your masterpiece and shower you with praises.

Let me know when you wake up from that dream. That wonderfully, deceptively, beautiful dream. Take your time. I can wait.

Sigh.

You know what comes next. What has to come next. It’s painstaking. It’s torturous (not for all but definitely for some). The self-editing process. (dun dun DUN.)

It’s necessary. Absolutely necessary. Some walk away from the work for awhile, focus on other things – blogs, cooking classes, those pesky kids that haven’t seen you clean shaven in three months – and then come back to the draft refreshed and energized. Some barrel in, list in hand at the problem areas they noted during the first draft. How you do it and when you do it are dependent on you.

But you have to do it.

Self-editing is crucial.

And when it comes to that time it is important to remember your attitude. In my case? I hate editing. Not because I’m so great it isn’t needed, though early on I thought this (a topic I’ll be chatting about soon because of how unprofessional it made me at the time and how it stymied any and all growth as a creator). No, I dislike the process because it is SO needed with my work. I hate catching errors in story logic worse than catching the flu. Typos? Missing words? The multitude of grammar errors? Fine. So be it.

But the big ones? The ones that make you question the entire work? UGH. That’s why I do it though. I have to. It bolsters everything else up. That brilliant reference to Krypton exploding might be the best quotable in the manuscript but if your character says it while being choked to death IN SPACE, it might not work.

You should love your writing, in as much as you love the art OF writing. Not your genius at solving racial discrimination in Chapter 314 of a 900 page opus. Just putting thought to paper (digitally is preferred these days though I love a good legal pad) is such an accomplishment in and of itself. Walking away from a draft thinking it is plated in gold and should be hung on an altar surrounded by statues of you is where most writers get off track.

Hating yourself helps a little.

Cursing the inconsistencies, screaming at the lack of logic, is the best thing for your book. And for you. Fiction, be it short or epic, is the ultimate word problem. (Math, I know.) It is though. Looking at it from a critical standpoint first – noting every question, every leap that fails to land – gives you your starting point for your self-editing. Love blinds you to this but hate, a true critical outlook – brings the work back to earth and you can see the places that need work.

Love comes back into play for revisions. You’ve pulled it apart. You’ve ripped your greatness to shreds. Now it’s time to put Humpty Dumpty back together again and the hater has no place in the equation.

But balance is the key.

Pull it apart. Put it back together. Do it enough times and you start to ask less questions, your notes lessen until it is all nit-picky garbage that is only keeping you from moving on. Getting to that point though takes time, time necessary to build a better book, a more powerful tome for your readers to enjoy.

And that’s why we do this, right?

Love your work. Hate it too. You’ll be better for it. And for the love of God hire an editor when you’re done. They make everything even better.

Thanks for reading.