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If you want to write something great then the power of editing can not be overestimated, yet no one likes to be edited and in the beginning very few people like to edit themselves. The change from one who hates editing to one who loves it comes in the understanding of how much in can improve your writing and at that point editing becomes something as addictive as writing itself. So what are the values of editing beyond that of simple proofreading? First and foremost it improves your writing, second it helps defend against writers block, and third it keeps your ideas on point.

Editing improves your writing in two important ways. The first and most immediate is that it allows you to remove excess words and ideas. I imagine editing like one might imagine carving a statue. Your story starts as a block of marble and with each past of the chisel you are not taking away parts of your story, you are taking away everything that's not your story and making what you truly want to say far more clear. In the long run it also helps improve your first drafts. As you edit you will begin to see your flaws far more clearly than when you are writing. You will find yourself using a phrase to often or adding in a redundant work often. More important you will begin to understand your style and voice better allowing you to exploit your strengths more fully.

Another important value of editing, or more accurately knowing you are going to edit, is the reduction of writers block. One of the chief causes of writers block is the belief that what you write in your first draft has to be good. This incorrect belief will be driven away by the understanding that you are going to edit later. There is no need for this idea to be perfect, or ever good just put it down on the page and then correct it in editing. This freedom to write crap will not only help with writers block, but will help to shut up your internal censor who is one of the biggest enemies of good writing.

The third value of editing is to keep you to the message. Rambling tangents can be fun when you're sitting around with your friends, but no one likes to read them in a book. It is surprising when editing how often you will find large sections of a story that can be cut fully out of a story with no effect at all on the plot and even when these are the best written part of the story it is often a good idea to do. It may be beautiful but a perfectly painted zebra wouldn't add anything to the painting of the last supper and the same is true of the extra parts in your story.

Every piece of work ever written can be improved and even more dangerous is the knowledge that they can always be improved so while it is vital to know you can edit it and make it better you must also understand that eventually you are going to have to let the story go as well. Edit, do it well, cut your story and then at some point stop fiddling with it and declare it as done as it is going to be.

Learn more about this author, Elton Gahr.
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