Writing Tips – when to start editing
One of the things I’m going to do with this blog now and again is write down a few tips for
all you keen writers and would be entrants in the self publishing game, to try and make life easier for all of us. With that in mind, let’s get started.
One of the simplest but most effective tips is this – don’t start editing your writing as soon as you’ve finished it. After you have completed your masterpiece, leave it for a day or two before you start going over it with an editor’s eye. Why? Well, because you might find that in those few days your mind is still working on your story and you might actually come up with a few better ideas to improve your work. If you immediately begin proofreading, that analytic process tends to kill your creative side and you might just miss some ideas that could be of benefit.
Then, of course, it is time to do the editing. The most important aspect of this is to make sure that you have used the correct grammar, punctuation and spelling throughout your work. This may seem obvious, but the consequences of doing it wrong can be disastrous. You might have written the most uplifting, elegant, superbly structured, masterfully plotted piece of fiction ever devised, but if it’s littered with spelling mistakes in the first chapter, the reader is just going to think “This guy’s hopeless” and give up.
p.s. Editing is the key – when the time is right.