Editing Tips for Creative Writing

Looking for editing tips for creative writing? Don’t know how to edit? Where to start? We’re all led to believe that creative writing flows effortlessly from our finger tips in an unbroken stream of consciousness. It doesn’t. Writing is hard work. Good, finished writing is down to good, solid editing.

Any text can be improved by several rounds of re-reading and re-editing, cutting and honing until the best possible version is achieved.

But how do you edit, exactly?

Distance

Put your draft aside for a few hours, days, or weeks. Read it back with fresh eyes once you have some distance from the initial writing. Enough distance that memory becomes a little fuzzy. When you read it back as a reader, not an author, the words almost belong to someone else. All those errors made in the heat of creation leap out.

Read in reverse

Reading in reverse breaks down our natural tendency to read what we expect, and not what is actually on the page. You’ll find miss-spellings and typos galore. This doesn’t address content, context and meaning, but it will improve the basic accuracy of the text. More of a proof-reading technique, it will clean up a lot of basic errors.

Reading aloud

Reading aloud can reveal those clunky, convoluted, and unclear passages that seemed so clear on the pad or the screen. It’s worth the time to read the entire manuscript, so you can spot those difficult, long passages with too many clauses, and not enough commas or full stops.

Value-add, or value minus.

If a word, clause or passage doesn’t add any value in terms of meaning, context, backstory or relevance, cut it. There has to be value or a pay off, if not immediately, then as a plant for several pages or chapters’ time. Otherwise, cut it.

Justify.

See ‘value-add’, above. Justify why that word or passage is there. What does it contribute? Does it fit the subject, genre and tone of the piece? Does it pay-off later on? Is a joke, a lengthy description or a brutal act of violence in keeping with the piece? Is it an unnecessary digression, or distraction? If so, cut it.

Technical language.

Is your use of technical or expert language appropriate for the piece? Whatever the genre or story, it has to be thoroughly grounded in research. Will the reader understand it? Is there language that needs to be simplified, explained, or, re-written in plain English? How do you explain specialist terms without a clunky chunk of exposition?

Audience-appropriate.

Spice, violence and profanity may be part of human experience, but not if you’re in reception class learning to read. Do you know what your target audience expects in terms of explicit content? Can you find the line and not cross it? Your tolerance for explicit content may not be the same as other people.

Brevity.

Creative writing isn’t a PowerPoint presentation. You don’t need to follow the public speaking rules.

‘tell them what you’re about to say, say it, then tell them what you said’

If you want punchy, impactful writing, say it once, say it right, first time, then move on.

Cut, cut, cut.

Brevity doesn’t come easily to most writers. Tight, concise, and precise text usually comes from ruthless cutting of wordy and abstruse drafts.

Does your manuscript speed along with the pace of Hemmingway or Dashiel Hammett? Or does it slowly and deliberately dwell on each tree, flower, insect, and blade of grass. Does it tip over into purple prose of extravagant description, metaphor, rhetoric and imagery? That belongs to nineteenth century prose styles. I doubt Charles Dickens would write in his classic style if he wrote contemporary serial fiction toady.

Which brings us to style and composition, to narrative voice, and a host of other aspects that we’ll look at in the next set of editing tips for creative writing.