Hatrack River Writers Workshop: The self-editing trap

This is topic The self-editing trap in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by darklight (Member # 5213) on :

Why is it that we are able to make valid and often realistic suggestions to how another writer can imporve their piece of prose, but we rarely seem to have the ability to do with our own?

Let's face it, I doubt there are many of us who hasn't at some point written something - a short story/scene/novel chapter, and thought 'Wow, that's amazing!' but others will tell you otherwise. And of course, when it's poited out, you see where you need to improve, re-write ect.

So what is it about our brains that makes it difficult to do it for ourselves? Maybe it's because we want to beleive we have written a great peice of writing. perhap we don't want to admit that what we have written is actually not all that great. Or maybe we find it difficult to be impartial with our own writing. Maybe its because we see the whole story and not what is written down for others to read. Perhaps its because we're too much inside our own heads even when we're reading back what we have written.

That's why it helps to leave your prose several weeks/months if possible before editing. You will probably come across passages that make no sense now you're not immediatly involved in the story - perhaps even sentances that you think 'What's that all about?'

So what would you say is the reason we can't efficiently self-edit?

Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :

I know exactly what you mean, Louise.

I think if you can solve that problem then your writing improves by leaps and bounds and maybe you even outgrow Hatrack. Well its a theory anyway. If that ever happens to me I'll let you know, lol

The other day I was watching Survivor with my wife but I already knew who got voted off and why. I was completely bored and distracted. I think that if you already know the story than you can no longer objectively assess the journey and how it may or may not pull you along. Your brain doesn’t throw up questions of confusion. How could you be confused? You wrote it. For me I have to come back to a story after a few days to even begin to try and be objective.

Tracy

[This message has been edited by tnwilz (edited April 19, 2007).]

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

You might think we all speak the same language. We don't. Everyone has their own personal version of the language in which they think and write.

When we write, we know exactly the story we are trying to say and to us, the words we write represent that story -- to us.

When we re-read what we wrote, we tend to see what we meant to say rather than what we actually said with our writing. We see the story rather than the writing.

Posted by NoTimeToThink (Member # 5174) on :

When we write, we already know the story - the reader doesn't; I think that's what most of us struggle with. This is why it is so important NOT to try to explain what you meant when the critiques start coming in; we have to learn to get our point across in our work - not outside of it.

It is hard to train yourself to forget what you know about your story so that you can read it as though for the first time. Thankfully we have this wonderful group of people here who are more than willing to help.

Posted by Sara Genge (Member # 3468) on :

This reminds me of all those Gestalt experiments in which you see things that aren't there. Your brain probably fills in the gaps in your story so that you see it as it should be instead of as it is.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

There is a great example of the self-editing problem:

Mary had a
a little lamb,
a little lamb
Mary had
a little lamb
It's fleece was
white as snow.

Be truthful how many of you missed the extra a? We know what it is supposed to say so our brains corrected the error.

[This message has been edited by kings_falcon (edited April 19, 2007).]

Posted by luapc (Member # 2878) on :

Many professional writers self-edit their works, and rely on very little outside advice, if any, before submission for publication. Robert Heinlein suggested not even editing your first drafts (though I do think that is folly for most writers).

Writing is something that has to be learned, and writing for publication does require a learning curve. The first thing that needs to be learned in that curve is the ability to communicate with proper English, and everything that entails, including grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Just as important, is an understanding of the mechanics of story telling, including characters and plot.

After learning this, the next thing that an author needs is to find their voice, or what makes a writer's works unique and different. What makes their stories theirs, and not someone else's, as Pantros alluded to.

At this point, the writer has all the necessary tools to do the job, but does need one additional thing--confidence in their own writing. To self-edit effectively, a writer needs to have the confidence that their changes are necessary and good, and a deep understanding of what they want to communicate.

The same goes for sifting through critiques. A writer needs to have confidence in the choices they make in changes suggested by critiquers, determining if they are right, and if they fit their voice. Luckily, confidence comes with time, and it'll show up sooner or later in every persistent writer.

As Pantros also alluded, one of the difficulties of writing is that the author is often too close to their own work, which can also make it more difficult to self-edit. Stephen King, and other authors, say to let a new piece of writing sit for a while before editing. Mr. King suggests anywhere from a month to six weeks, but this will vary by the individual author. This gives a writer time to gain some distance from the story and allows them to make a more honest assesment of it. It turn, it allows for better editing as well.

Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :

First, let's clarifying something. Robert Heinlein seems to have been a one-draft writer. I read somewhere that he wrote four pages of copy a day. That's an old term we don't use nowadays. What it means is this: He wrote four perfect pages a day. It might have taken him six or ten hours to do so, but he did it. At the end of 100 days, he had his novel.

(We also know that Heinlein lied about selling the first thing he'd ever written; a novel that predates his first published story has turned up. So let's not get carried away with what he said about his writing process.)

(Also, if you're referring to Heinlein's third-rule of writing, he simply means that once you finish a story, it's finished. Don't fiddle with it unless and editor says, "If you change this, I might buy it.")

Self-editing, like everything else, can be learned. There are various thing one needs to do in order to learn it.

First, one should have a solid knowledge of grammar and the principles of composition. If you don't, then buy college-level grammar book and study it.

Second, don't discount close study of professional stories. The key to writing good fiction is mastering technique. So study technique. Even type out a half dozen or so stories (all by different writers) in order to closely analyze their style and technique.

Third, begin to take notice of your weaknesses. I've noticed that I don't write using all five of my senses. My characters have only eyes and ears. So I know that one of the things I have to do during the revision process is to incorporate the other senses into my stories. Poul Anderson (I think) advises using three of the senses in every scene. My wife (who is not a writer) has a nasty habit of using pronouns when telling a story. About halfway through you don't know what the hell is going on. We all have writing peccadillo's; if you know what yours are, you can fix them.

Fourth, make a commitment to actually write a second draft. Maybe that means, after printing out your first draft, you delete it off your hard drive. Writing a true second draft will force you to rethink every sentence, and because you already have the material in front of your, rethinking the story will only deepen it.

Fifth, engage in writing exercises. Write a scene in ten different ways. Get a feel of what works, and what doesn't. Experiment.

Sixth, get a hold of a book like Fiction Writer's Workshop by Josip Novakovich and take three months working your way through it. This book is particularly nice because each exercises has a before and after section. The "before" tells you what to write, then after you write it the "after" section gives you advice on how to analyze your work. Did you include X? Did you do Y? And so forth.

Seventh, decide that you won't edit or rewrite any story until you've written, say, 300,000 words of fiction (about a year's worth of writing), and then read as much as much fiction as you can while writing toward this goal. The interplay between writing a lot and reading a lot is the best teacher you can have. Looking back, I wish I had taken this seventh piece of advice to heart four years ago, when I first got serious about writing. It would have saved me a lot of time, a lot of frustration, and a lot of pain.

One last thing -- I'm not advocating that any one person should do EVERYTHING on this list. It's just a list. Take some of it, or all of it, or none of it.

[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited April 19, 2007).]

Posted by RMatthewWare (Member # 4831) on :

I think the problem with self-editing is that when we write, we usually know exactly what we're talking about. I think we associate what we've written to what we know we meant. That's why it's hard for you to catch errors, or something that can be taken more than one way. I remember in school when we wrote a paper we were told to put it down for a while so we can distance ourselves. I think that is sound advice. When you put down your work for a while (a week, a few weeks, a month) you can come back to it and get a fresh perspective.

Another thing that helps a lot is if you can have someone read your work and tell you about any problems. For my short stories, I have my wife read them. They're short enough that she can help. For my novel, I have a friend who's good at editing take a look. He was able to offer a lot of advice that radically transformed by novel.

Matt

Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :

For me, it's a matter of figuring out what is wrong with what I have down on the page. If you can figure that out, then you have a better chance of fixing what's wrong. So many times, though, it becomes just a matter of merely changing things hoping that THIS, the new way, is better. Like closing your eyes and throwing the ball again at the target.

It is so HARD to truly figure out why a section of prose is not working. Especially when you get the "it just doesn't work for me" kinds of critiques. But few people really understand why something isn't working "for them."

What a hair-pulling mess.

One bit of advice I've culled from writing texts is out of STORY SENSE by Paul Lucey. He says that if a scene isn't working, the problem usually is that you haven't made the storypoint of the scene or not made it effectively.

If the point is to show X's character, then is that accomplished? Or, if the point is to show that Sandy did indeed travel to Montreal on the midnight express, is that clear (and shown in an interesting way)?

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

Look at it another way. I've sent out stories that people have found what they considered mistakes in, and they sold. I've sent out what I consider to be better stories and they are still in inventory. You never know what somebody will like.

I am also a one-draft writer. I truly doubt Heinlein was against proof-reading and correcting errors. One draft meant that he didn't rewrite unless to editorial specifications, not that he didn't bother to make corrections.

Posted by Chaldea (Member # 4707) on :

Kings Falcon:

Yes, I noticaed the extra "a" and also that "it's" should be "its."
About editing: I didn't read all the posts, but here's my two cents. I have a writer's group that has been meeting every Monday night for the past 7 years. We trade mss and go over each other's work, make edits, ask questions, give suggestions in the margins. We discuss these comments at the meetings. The act of getting together and helping each other is all part of the writing process for me.

Mainly, this group idea is great for extra sets of eyes on your work. It's free (ever price an editing service?), constructive and everyone finds the time spent very helpful.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

Chaldea, you learn more from critiquing other people's work than you do with your own. That'e the central activity at bootcamp.

Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :

I disagree with Spaceman. You learn to write quickly by writing more and reading more. The more you write, the more you stumble upon problems you don't know how to solve. So you sit there and try to figure out how to get from A to B. Then what happens is that you sit down with a novel or a anthology, and suddenly you notice how other writers -- professional writers -- handled it, and the more you read, the more variations you're exposed to. It's this interplay that is crucial.

Posted by luapc (Member # 2878) on :

Since I'm the one who brought up Heinlein, I think I should add a little more on how I view his advice. When taking advice from an author, especially ones from as far back as when Heinlein did most of his writing, the technology available for the craft needs to be considered. Henlein gave this advice based upon his experiences in a world where the best writing instrument of the day was a typewriter (only slightly more advanced than pen and paper).

If an author wrote anything then, their first draft was far more likely to be closer to their final draft than how most writers work today. Making changes required retyping the entire document, not just calling it up on screen and making simple fixes quickly.

With computers, we can cut and paste, run spelling and grammar checkers, and send out our manuscripts over the web to on-line critique groups. All great tools, but none of which were available during most of Heinlein's day. That also has changed the way writers both write and edit today, and has an impact on the way we approach errors in our work.

I truly believe that Heinlein meant exactly what he said, don't edit your first drafts. By that though, I think he was trying to say that authors needed to learn how to write well enough in their first drafts so changes weren't necessary. I imagine that authors planned a lot more then than they do now, considering how much more work changes would have been, but I really don't know. I wonder, if computers would have been available to Heinlein when he started writing if his advice would have been the same. Personally, I doubt it would have.

Posted by Leonidas (Member # 5022) on :

I think you have to come up with what works for you personally, and all the suggestions so far are good avenues.

For me, anything larger than an email I need to take out into the back yard and bury it for a few months. When I dig it up, I usually have one of two responses; “what idiot wrote this” or “I’m a genius.” The former gets thrown in the mulch pit, the other gets cleaned up, rewritten, and buried a few more times.

Letting my work ferment lets me forget exactly what I meant to write and to read the words for what they really are.

[This message has been edited by Leonidas (edited April 20, 2007).]

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Much as I admire Heinlein and his work---mostly his work---I've come to realize that, as far as revising his work went, Heinlein was "shoveling with both hands" as far as revision of his work goes. He did quite a bit before whatever he wrote went to market. He'd also make drastic revisions in early work for republication, ostensibly to update it or to practice his by-then-more-advanced writing skills.

I feel a revision in Heinlein's Third Rule coming on...hang on...okay. "Rewrite till you're satisfied or tired...then move on to something new."

Posted by oliverhouse (Member # 3432) on :

Critiquing other people's work helps me see the problems in my own. Admittedly, it's still much easier to see problems in someone else's work than in mine, but when I'm in the habit of noticing specific issues, I see them more easily in my own stuff.

To critique yourself well, critique other people a lot. They don't even have to know you're doing it -- just read their stuff with your critiquing hat on.