Nib #68 How to Edit Like a Pro

Many of the problems that plague young writers today are really editing problems. After all, everyone’s first drafts are terrible. The biggest difference between a well written final draft and poorly written one is the editing they go through.

Most young writers today have never had to thoroughly edit their work — so they don’t really know how. And though it’s a skill that can only be developed in practice (Sorry!), there are a few guidelines that can help flatten that learning curve. Here are five:

1. Read your drafts out loud. This is the single most valuable piece of writing advice in the world. Because human beings are hardwired for speaking and listening, our ears are much better editors than our eyes. Read your work aloud, and you will hear mistakes, clunky phrasing, inapt word choices, overlong sentences, and logical digressions that your eyes would never notice just sight-reading.
   
   
2. Edit to Your Audience. Never write a generic argument for X. Rather, your writing should advocate X to a specific audience. So as you edit your work (Out loud!), have that target audience front-of-mind. Their age, sex, politics, jobs, interests, and goals should inform your word choices, the points you make and the order you make them, your tone, the level of detail and abstraction, etc.
   
   
3. Avoid Repetition. One of the things that makes first drafts bad is that we tend to repeat ourselves in them. We all have favorite words, phrases, and sentence structures we use too often. Learn yours, and keep an ear out for them. When editing, if it ever sounds like you might be repeating yourself, you probably are.
   
   
4. Streamline. This is the editing skill young writers struggle with most. Good editing isn’t about cutting text; it’s about economizing it. Look for 18-word sentences you can rewrite in 13. Look for back-to-back sentences in paragraphs that say basically the same thing — delete one. Look for back-to-back paragraphs that analyze the same issue from two perspectives, and see if you can combine them into one. Trust me: these kinds of redundancies will exist in every first draft you ever write.
   
   
5. Just Communicate. Write to inform and persuade — not to impress. Good writing simplifies; bad writing complicates. Don’t show off. Don’t try to “sound smart.” Don’t adorn your writing with obscure references and esoteric intellectualisms. Strip away the affectations, and what’s left will be truth, well put — which is what we mean by good writing.

So, the next time someone tells you to “give it a once-over” or “clean this up a bit,” read your work aloud with these tips in mind. You’ll be surprised how much and how quickly it helps.

Until next week… keep writing!