The Artist Vs. the Editor

What do I mean by the artist vs. the editor? Well, this month’s theme is all about how to edit our stories. But within one writer is–or should be–both the creative artist and the analytical editor. Both personalities are critical for creating a story readers will enjoy. But the artist and the editor don’t play well together, so it’s important for writers to recognize when to hang out with the one and when to send the other packing.

First Draft Torture

I find writing the first draft of any story almost torture. Because my pesky internal editor won’t leave my artist alone. I can be in the middle of a conversation between several characters, and my editor is saying, “You’re using ‘said’ too much. Put in some action tags” when my goal at this point is to establish the fact that Mrs. Murphy saw Old Man Willis sneaking around the abandoned Simmons house a few hours before it burned. And all my editor can see is that I’ve used too many “saids”!

But When the First Draft is Finished …

It’s time to roll my sleeves, put on my hard hat, and do some serious reconstruction and polishing. This not the time for my artist to skip in and tell me, “You know, Mrs. Murphy is a fascinating character. You should add more scenes with her.” Or “Do you really want Mayor Haggerty to be the murderer? Old Man Willis might be better.”

The artist can distract me with tantalizing variations on the story I’ve completed. But if I’m working on a deadline, I have to send her off to a field to frolic with unicorns and the Eater Bunny.

In My Experience

I’ve had much greater trouble with my editor during the first draft phase than I do with the artist in the editorial phase. Probably because the artist is so exhausted by the time I get to “The End”, that she appreciates a vacation.

In reality, writers can’t totally separate their artistic side from their analytical side, but I’ve found I have to focus primarily on one or the other. I don’t mind doing a few edits as I write my first draft. Or writing a new scene when my editor sees a need. But if I give both sides of the writing process equal weight at the same time, writing becomes drudgery, and I wear myself out.

So in the battles of the artist vs. the editor, who do you have the most trouble with?

For more posts about editing, click here.

March 6, 2025 0

Your Writing Style = Your Editing Style

This month, we’ll be wrapping up “The Journey of a Book” that I started last January, our last theme being editing. Some writers love it, some hate it, but a writer must use this invaluable tool if he or she wants to share their story with the public. You can approach editing in about as many ways as you can approach writing because your writing style = your editing style.

Forget Planners and Pantsers

When I write about writing style, I don’t mean whether you’re a planner and have a dossier on every character and an outline for every scene in your boo, or a pantser, or discovery writer, who plunges into writing with a minimum of planning.

The writing style I refer to is your system for completing a manuscript. Do you write the first draft, from beginning to end, before you review any of it? Do you write scenes out of sequence and stitch them together later? Once you understand how you work when it comes to finishing a book, you’ll realize how to get the editing done.

The Bridge Method of Writing

Never heard of the Bridge Method of Writing? Good. I hope you haven’t because I just invented it. No, not really invented it. Just named it. It’s the way I write, and I figured it sounded it better to give it a name, rather then just cal it “my goofy writing style”.

I’ve tried to change how I finish a manuscript and have bowed to the way I’m wired. After doing some initial planning, I sit down and write four to six chapters. I quit when I feel unsafe, like walking out on a bridge until I feel the floorboards bend under my weight. I’m not sure if my beginning chapters can support anymore of my story without a review. I return to the bridgehead–the first chapter– and edit. At this point, I polish just enough to see if these beginning chapters are worth anything. I’ll go into more details about the different kinds of editing later in the month.

When I’m confident that these chapters are a good enough foundation to lengthen the bridge, I write the next four to six chapters. Again, when I feel like my writing is growing aimless or clunky, I switch to editing and shore up my the next set of chapters, so I can extend the bridge–story–further. By the time, I’m finished, the beginning chapters should be in great shape and only need tweaked to fit with the rest of the book. Because I’ve been seesawing between first draft and editing, I don’t have a lot of editing to do once I’ve written the ending. I focus on the last chapters because they’ve had the lead attention.

Writers, do you love editing or hate it? How does your writing style = your editing style?

For more information on editing, check out this post on The Write Conversation. For my other posts on editing, look here.

January 4, 2024 5

Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel

When you’re done with NaNoWriMo, you’re faced with the hardest but I think most rewarding part of writing–editing. This phase can make you want to tear your hair out or tear your manuscript up, but it will add magic to your prose if you stick to it. Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel by Stephanie Morrill and Jill Williamson provides all kinds of help through this crucial process.

Edit Your Novel is an inaccurate title because the books covers so much more than that. A little over half of the book concerns editing, both macro and micro. Don’t know what those words mean? Get the book because it will explain that macro- editing is revising the big issues, such as character development and theme. Micro-editing is all the tiny things that need taken care of, like knowing when to insert or remove commas.

One of the most helpful sections under micro-editing is the chapter on punctuation. Author Jill Williamson sets out the rules from how to punctuate dialogue to how to correctly type and use en-dashes and em-dashes. I would have loved to have had this handy guide earlier in my career

The other half of the book provides all kinds of advice on how to get published with chapters on how traditional publishing works, how to write a synopsis and a query, find a literary agent, and deal with rejection.

The extra chapters at the end are the kind of bonus material I love. There’s self-editing checklist, brainstorming ideas, and the authors’s list of weasel words and phrases, which are words and phrases each author falls into the habit of using over and over again in their first draft. “Just” is a particular weasel word of mine. When I edit, I have to find them and retain only the ones that actually serve a purpose.

For those of us who’ve found so much help in Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel or on the Go Teen Writer’s website, there’s good news. Go Teen Writers: Write Your Novel is coming out December 3! Be sure to pre-order a copy.

What books on editing do you recommend?

November 19, 2020 3

Tag: Advice on editing for writers