Sep 30

Sep 30 To self-edit or not to self-edit while writing, that is the question

Is self-editing a help or hindrance to writing?

Writers hear a lot about self-editing. How crucial it is, how empowering it is and how it’s the best way to develop your work to a better level … a publishable level.

There’s no doubt that self-editing is an essential skill for a writer, no matter what it is you’re writing or which industry you’re working in, whether you’re a journalist, a content writer, a short story writer or book author. But I’ve always wondered whether self-editing is actually a hindrance to the writing process, rather than an enabler. Does it stop writers from being able to produce that first draft, especially for long-form writing such as manuscripts? Does it in fact perpetuate the self-doubt during the writing stage and cripple you because you start to focus on the negative elements, rather than actually completing the original idea?

To explore this, I spoke with three authors who have really refined their writing and self-editing processes – Kaye Dobbie, T.M. Clark and Nadia Jamal. I wanted to understand how self-editing affects their writing, whether it helps or hinders them, and what advice they can give to other writers who might find self-editing is actually getting in the way of their creativity. In particular, I wanted to discuss their experiences with their first books, compared with today, when they have produced so many. And with the three authors being from such different fields – from historical fiction and women’s fiction, to action adventure and children’s books, journalism and non-fiction, I was confident that their experiences would shed a better light on how to make self-editing work for you as a writer.

Kaye Dobbie

Kaye Dobbie is the bestselling author of historical fiction, romance fiction and women’s fiction, and has written 24 books (she’s onto her 25th as we speak!). Her books have been translated into many languages, and she’s written under her own name, as well as two pseudonyms.

And while she says her first book was a long time ago, she does remember it well.

‘I remember when I started writing it, I was all fired up and excited to get my story down on the page. I inhabited the skins of those characters and just loved it. My only worry was that I was young and still learning my craft, but I knew that would come with time and practice.

After I was published it changed. I started to worry about my writing and I started to lose my confidence. Part of that was the editing process, because I suddenly realised I didn’t know a lot of stuff I thought I did. Before when I wrote, I wasn’t worried about spelling mistakes or the structure of a sentence or the right way of inserting punctuation, because that could all be fixed later, couldn’t it? Now it became more and more difficult to lock those doubts away and concentrate on the story.

I went through a period where I was a very harsh critic of my own writing, to the point where it began to stifle my creativity. It certainly stifled my joy. Commas loomed so frighteningly large that I spent precious writing time moving them back and forth, taking them out and putting them back in. Did I overuse certain words (everyone does) and what could I use instead? Were my characters all stereotypes? My inner perfectionist/critic was taking control.’

Editors know that the editing process isn’t a fun experience for a writer. It can be painful and sheer hard work, so I’m not surprised to hear that Kaye’s exposure to editing pulled her out of the sacred writing space and into the critical editing one. But what does she think of self-editing now, and how does she manage to achieve completing manuscript after manuscript, with all this to battle.

‘I think self-editing is a two-edged sword, really. You see something wrong, and back you go to correct it, and then more of the story needs rewriting, so you do that, and before you know it the whole thing needs re-reading because all of those changes mean that nothing makes sense anymore. My experience tells me that it’s probably better to make a note of the change and keep going. Do as much as you can before you lose that focus, because once it’s gone it’s hard to get it back again.

Now I’ve managed to rein that monster in. I remind myself that I’m writing a draft and it doesn’t need to be perfect. I’m here to enjoy myself, enjoy my story, discover my characters. It’s a first draft and I will be writing many more before I get everything right because that’s how my process works.’

The key word here is draft. Writers need to remember that you can have more than one draft of a manuscript or story, and in fact you most likely need to redraft before it’s publishable. Crucially, writers need to remember that a draft doesn’t have to be perfect, especially a first draft.

So, what advice does Kaye give to other writers about self-editing? Should you self-edit as you write, or should you avoid it until you’ve actually completed a whole draft of a story?

‘Every writer is different. If you’re like me, and don’t do a whole lot of plotting in the beginning, and basically all you know about your story are the main characters and the time period and the beginning and the ending (and even the ending is fuzzy), then it is important to let your writing flow unhindered.

Keep writing until you run out of steam and then go back and look at what you have. Sleep on it, because many writing problems are solved during sleep. Don’t beat yourself up because your story doesn’t come out perfectly at the first try. Mistakes can be fixed, so don’t worry about them in that first draft. There’ll be plenty of time for editing later. Enjoy yourself, because that’s the point of writing, isn’t it?’

T.M. Clark

Tina Clark is the bestselling author of adult action-adventure fiction and children’s books. She has written seven adult books and six children’s books, and is currently working on adult book number eight.

Writing has never come easily for Tina because of her dyslexia, because as she says, sometimes just figuring out what she’s trying to say takes a lot of work. And so her first book is particularly memorable for her.

‘My first book, My Brother-But-One, took me over ten years to write, rewrite, change, edit and finally be ready for submission. I was motivated for the actual writing, but it took me a long time to find my genre and to write the story that was eventually published. At one point, I lost half of the book when my computer crashed and had to rewrite the back half (it was better for it, believe me!).

Writing your first book isn’t easy. There is a lot of technical jargon to learn and to get stuck on/buried too deep in, as I did at one stage. I had to step back and remember why I was writing the story, and that in the end what mattered was creating a story someone else wanted to read, not a perfectly grammatically correct book.’

Despite her success, Tina continues to experience self-doubt while writing and self-editing, and it’s something she’s always working to overcome with a manuscript.

‘As I write each and every book, I’m always plagued with self-doubt. My first three books were basically written before I was contracted, so I had written more than one in some form or other when the contracts arrived. It was just a matter of making sure that the books were written to what I had signed up for.

My doubt came after my first book did really well, despite being orphaned by my original editor who bought it. My numbers were really good, but then, there wasn’t as much advertising, hype and hand holding on the second book, and the numbers didn’t do as well. I worried that I was a fraud, and the first book was just a fluke. By then the third book was already contracted, so when the edits came, I had to just do them the best I could.

All this created a huge amount of doubt and turned me into an emotional mess for book four, Child of Africa. I just couldn’t write. I would sit in front of my computer and just cry. Eventually, I pulled myself together with the help of some amazing writer friends, and I wrote a draft. I gave the first unedited draft to a publishing house editor I admired. She appeared to ignore the part where it was the first draft, and instead gave me some very disappointing feedback, but I took what she said to heart and I re-edited and rewrote a lot of my book. While it was hard to step away from the writing and fix what was wrong, it helped to do this, as I learned that writing for me is an emotional process.

Then last year, I released Cry of the Firebird about a particularly hard topic that was close to my heart: dementia. My mum was diagnosed when I was doing the research, so I was emotionally and creatively empty when I finished writing that one. Add to that my mum’s deterioration, and I was not achieving the word count I needed to complete the book. I knew I was in trouble.

Learning from past experiences, I took time off to refill the creativity well, and spent precious time with my mother. And I completed the book after that.

I’m almost finished book eight, and I have no idea how it will be received, but I do know that self-doubt will always be there in the back of my mind. Mostly, I have found the best way to control it, is simply to put my butt in my chair and write my story. Because I will not let it rob me of the stories I want to write and share with my readers.’

It would be understandable if Tina grew to loathe and fear the editing process, and if self-editing became the ultimate hindrance for her. But she doesn’t, and although there’s always a degree of pain with self-editing, it doesn’t hold her back.

‘One of the lessons that really hit home with Child of Africa was to listen to editors, even when they’re telling you something you may not want to hear. They know what they’re doing and really do want to see your story succeed.’

And these days, she strictly manages the self-editing process.

‘I do a “vomit” draft where I get all my ideas down on the page from beginning to end. I don’t change spellings and the grammar is a mess. I just write (my page is full of red lines!). If I think of something that I need that I don’t have the information for, I flag it with a note, and I come back to it when I’m finished. Only on completion of writing THE END do I allow myself to go back and edit.

You can fix any rubbish writing, make it better, but you can’t fix anything if there are no words there. Write. Then edit. Is how I go.’

But of course, Tina’s process may not work for everyone else, because every writer is different and their process and journey are unique to them. But for first-time writers especially, Tina’s advice is to, ‘just write. Give yourself permission to simply get the words on the page, tell your story – the rest can be fixed, but only you can tell your story! Without a completed story you have nothing.’

Nadia Jamal

Nadia Jamal is the award-winning co-author of Glory Garage: Growing up Lebanese Muslim in Australia and the author of Headstrong Daughters. As a former Sydney Morning Herald journalist and editor, she approached writing her first book as she would any newspaper story – with the practical skills and knowledge she’d honed over many years.

‘Writing my first book as a working journalist, I was already trained to write pretty fast and to edit as I went along. I would describe it as a long-ish process, but on further reflection – compared with authors who are noted for labouring over material for years and years – I probably wrote it too quickly! That dramatic, romantic notion of a writer who is stuck in a dark room in an anguished state over their writing, well ... that wasn’t me.’

That isn’t to say that writing came easily for her. And although self-editing was part and parcel of her writing process, she was as plagued with self-doubt as any other author.

‘I spent every spare minute outside of work hunched over a laptop writing my first book. I don’t know if I would say I was confident about it, but I was certainly focused. Because of the subject matter, though, I think I was nervous about the reception and probably fretted about that too much during the writing process. I think most people self-censor and I do wonder if I did this too much. However, writing a book like that, and with the community-minded approach that I have, I was never going to be operating in a vacuum and had to consider the impact on family, friends and the broader Muslim community.’

With such sensitive subject matter, and with the weight of representation the book carried, Nadia was under a tremendous amount of pressure to get the tone of the book right, and to honour the stories people trusted her with.

‘I was so concerned about how the subject matter would be received both within the Australian Muslim community and the wider community. It was written during a period when the local Muslim community was under the spotlight and the subject of much negative media. I was keen to strike the right balance – between being true to the subjects who were sharing their personal stories and not exposing the community to unnecessary vitriol.’

For Nadia, self-editing is a helpful tool that keeps her writing on the right track, and she always does it as she works from the outset.

‘I can’t just write without stopping. Self-editing as I go along helps to keep me focused. It also helps me to challenge myself throughout the process, rather than leaving it all to the end. I have to say that this is a skill that I apply to all my writing, be it a business email, a personal letter or a book.

I do wonder now, though, that if I had taken this approach of not self-editing as I wrote, whether my work would be more raw and ... better. But with the subject matter I was covering, it can be pretty sensitive and have a big impact on people’s lives, so I felt a responsibility to both explore an issue and to also keep it in perspective. I don’t like to write as an “outsider” – that person who is pouring poo-poo over people or a community. I consider myself to be part of the community, so I want to give that nuanced perspective. I’m not saying that I don’t want to cover the negative, I just don’t want it to be only about that, because there are a lot of positives and these don’t get much oxygen.’

Although self-editing is a comfortable space for Nadia, she does set herself some markers to keep it in check.

‘I don’t have strict word-number protocols for when to self-edit. However, I don’t edit after writing a few words or a few sentences. I only self-edit at the end of a draft of a chapter. Maybe the world’s best writers do have those strict protocols because every word is a pearl, though. And that’s definitely got me thinking: I wonder if I edit too much, that is, edit out the better stuff, because of my own anxieties about what to put out into the world.’

Her advice to writers, particularly first-time authors, is to write wherever and whenever, because every little bit counts.

‘A scribbled word or two in a notebook, an idea uploaded to your iPhone – none of this is a wasted experience or material. And try not to think about it as a “first” anything. Instead, see it as part of a process/journey. It sounds a bit naff, I know, but do you really need to tick that box that says “first draft”?

As for self-editing, you need to find your own groove. What works for one writer won’t necessarily work for another. Use an iPad, sketch in a notebook, write on the train ... whatever gets you going. That’s the most important thing, to get going.’