Take out a Red Pen and Make It Bleed

Good writing is in the editing process.

Learning to write well is an ongoing process that can take a lifetime to master.

I look back on writing from two months ago and immediately realize some of my work could use another rewrite: a revision here and there — one more edit.

Too often, new writers mistake rewriting for proofreading. Rewriting doesn’t mean using spell check.

While proofreading is essential for good copy, proofreading means looking for grammatical and spelling errors.

Write without fear — Edit without mercy

Editing, on the other hand, consists of making changes in structure, format, content, and flow.

It’s essential to edit ruthlessly.

Here is how I edit

First, I print my writing out on paper.

That way, I can hold the paper as I pace back and forth in my office reading aloud and editing with ruthless abandon with red pen in hand and “make it bleed.”

What’s left on the page is only those sentences and paragraphs which serve the story, those that are clear and concise.

Reading aloud as I edit has improved my writing over the past three months more than anything else.

The mistakes scream at me as I hear my writing aloud, and not just in my head. Writers tend to edit out spelling and grammatical mistakes on their own work as they’re reading to themselves, they skip right over them simply because they’ve read it so many times.

Edit more than once

Don’t just edit once, edit a few times. Edit out anything from your work that doesn’t make it better — take out anything that doesn’t make it flow more easily, anything that doesn’t make sense; those things will stand out during the reading aloud process.

Rewriting means writing a passage until it consists of the best group of words for the clearest and most concise sentence or paragraph so that your words effortlessly convey your message to your reader.

Be generous with your readers. Give to your readers and get your ego out of the way. Your reader (your audience) has plenty of other options in the way they spend their time. Make sure you are teaching them something new, entertaining them, or sharing something with them you are learning.

Rewriting is shaping your work into more powerful and beautiful text in hopes of keeping your readers there with you, reading your journey.

How much time in the editing process

The general rule is to spend one-third of your time writing, and two-thirds of your time rewriting.

The process of getting words out of my head in free-flow form is the easiest part for me; I love vomiting onto the page in brain-dump fashion, it is the editing process I struggle with the most. When editing and rewriting my brain is on fire, the opposite is true when I just write — it’s meditative and grounding.

“Jam session writing” or freeform writing is freeing and an important part of the process — your vulnerability has a chance to breathe, and it’s when you often get your most honest thoughts on the page.

Mine for gold

Post freeform writing without editing, you can then “mine for gold.” Look for those gems in your jam session writing that you want to hone in on, drill down on, and expand.

Editing is taking out the superfluous and chiseling down your work to make it the best you can at that time. If it seems like you could improve your work ad infinitum, you probably can, but at some point, you have to let it go and put it out there.

I sometimes allow my perfectionist tendencies to creep in. It is a constant battle not to allow perfectionism to win and stop me from starting.

I think of this John Steinbeck often when I want to throw in the towel on my writing for good,

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

Don’t stop yourself from writing out of a feeling of “not good enough.”

Starting with “not good enough” leads to good enough, and sometimes great and consistent work.

Here are some tips to help you through rewriting:

1. Step away from your writing for a good 24 hours. Get space from your writing. Let some time pass. When you pick it up again, the distance you allowed will make it easier to see what needs to be edited. Getting space from an essay allows for clarification of ideas. When you come back with fresh eyes, it is easier to see where your words can use more work by subtracting or adding ideas, information, or punctuation that will clarify your message.
2. Read each draft aloud. Rework anything that sounds clunky, forced, or repetitive. It will be more obvious when you read your work aloud, any errors or odd sentence structure will scream for a rewrite.
3. When you are reading your draft aloud, be the reader and not the writer. Keep in mind that what is interesting to you as a writer, may not be interesting you to as a reader. Read it as if you are your audience member. Is what you wrote interesting, inspiring, funny, informative? Offer something tangible to your reader and keep your audience in mind during the editing process.
4. Rewriting means panning for gold. Those nuggets that pop out at you when you know you’re getting somewhere — keep those in. Take out the unnecessary. However, keep in mind that those nuggets need to enhance your story. Every sentence must serve a purpose. Your first sentence must make the reader want to read the next, and so on. Even if you think you wrote the best sentence of our life, and it doesn’t fit your story, you need to delete it or put it in a folder for later use. Make your storytelling urgent and engaging through the rewriting process.
5. Work on style. Style means putting the right words in the best place to communicate with your reader effectively. Punctuation is one way to develop your style and adds pace. Experiment with different punctuation: periods, colons, semicolons, em-dashes, commas. The way to build your style is to write a lot. And then write some more.
6. Stop trying to be a good writer or a great writer and start trying to be an effective writer. Rewrite with the mindset of effectively communicating a message to your audience. What is your message? What ideas are you trying to convey to your reader? What are you attempting to express? There is usually one or sometimes more ideas within your text you could clarify or draw a direct thread through, make point A to point B as clear as possible. Determine this during the first draft and hold that message in mind throughout your rewrites.
7. Finish your story and release it. When you feel you’ve given it your best rewrite, let it go. Remember that perfect doesn’t exist. Do the best you can on each essay and know with time spent writing and rewriting, you will do better next time.

Quantity of writing leads to quality in writing.

The drudgery of rewriting pays off in the final product and makes the next rewrite on the next essay easier than the last after you get the hang of it.

I hope you keep writing.

Here are some more articles on writing.

Join my email list here.

Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering perfectionist. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.