Not a new topic for me, this, but one I have a few feelings on and one I thought would make a good opener to my cross-posting to tumblr. (Which I am now doing. For the record. Hi, tumblr followers.)
From my very scientific observations of writers in general, most of them seem to view editing with certain measures of distaste if not downright loathing. It’s the little casual narratives — the ‘ugh I have to edit x thing’ complaint followed by sympathy from everyone else, and suchlike. Editing, from what I’ve seen, gets a really short thrift. It’s a necessary evil, but no one ever wants to do it.
Well, I do. I love editing. It’s one of my favourite parts of writing. Writing is hard. I need to birth that shit from nothing. Editing means I get to read my work again and make it better, and since it already exists, it’s that much easier.
This is, I suspect, because I don’t edit the same way most writers have learned to do. So, this post is about distinguishing the difference between two types of editing, and why only one is worth anything.
Note: it’s not the one that’s taught in university. Writing degrees are, almost without exception, about analysis. It’s a search to find what works, and ‘fix’ it. The problem is that that kind of analysis does it by finding the imperfections and labelling them as wrong. As something to be fixed.
This might sound like an obvious ‘duh’, but when was the last time someone pointing out all your flaws ever made you feel good about yourself? Psychologically speaking we know that the best way to change someone’s mind isn’t to attack them. Obviously, if a writer is so psychologically bound to their work that any amount of criticism is a personal affront, that’s a problem. But why are writers expected to sit back and thank people while having all the mistakes of their best efforts exposed?
This is what writers think editing is. This is, in fact, what critical editing is. The focus of critical editing is to tear down, to expose flaws, as if just the having of imperfections is somehow sinful. And this is the kind of editing writers everywhere think is normal.
Right.
My coauthor, when we talked about this, had an analogy. She likened writing to sculpting, and editing to the polishing. When a sculpture makes their art, it starts out raw and slowly gets refined into the image the artist wants. Over time, rough edges get polished away. They’re not flaws: they’re just hiding the actual representation the artist is trying to find. It’s the same concept as sketch (or other) artists using white space to find the shape they’re really after.
Creative editing is like that. It’s not about the flaws; it’s about finding the best way to tell the story you want to tell. If there’s a part that’s too bulgy, smooth it out. If there’s a place that’s too rough, polish it a little. These aren’t ‘fixes’: they’re cleaning up what’s already there to make your work more of what you imagined, rather than less wrong.
Note that I’m not talking about drafting, here. I write one complete draft of my works. Often I will edit as I go, but when I finish my stories, I do a full edit that one draft, once. If it’s a co-written story, my coauthor will also edit: once. Then I clean up the remaining comments, without editing, and prep it for print.
Does this mean there’s flaws? Oh, hell yeah. No writer has ever written a perfect story. Ever. If it’s not going to happen, why expend unnecessary effort trying to get there? I do the best I can at the time and send it on.
Sometimes, if I’ve started from a place that doesn’t work for the story, I might have to jettison and start over, but it’s always in search of what will tell the story best. It’s not about wrong or right; it’s about need and purpose. Those words that I wrote aren’t a draft: they’re scrap. They told me something about what my story needed, and they weren’t it.
Drafts (multiple!) aren’t creative editing. Drafts are critical editing. They’re a search for perfection and the difficulty accepting something just as it is: a complete object, however imperfect, which nevertheless exists.
Critical editing tears down, exposes flaws for the sake of exposing them. Creative editing sees them as inspiration, as a path to the image you’re actually after.
Critical editing forces you to actively look for things you’ve done wrong. Creative editing lets you revel in what you’ve wrought, regardless of imperfection.
Maybe critical editing does help you make your work better, but if there’s a choice between feeling terrible or feeling inspired while you do, who would ever choose the former? Not I.
Aurichalcum Publishing 