The Violence of Editing

There is an idea championed by dramatist Anne Bogart, that directing a piece of theatre is an act of violence. When you make a decision, or decide that an actor should "keep" something, you are effectively destroying all other possibilities. Beyond that, the changing of a scene or alternative direction of an actor is an act of violence when it comes before. Now these directors are often working with scripts that they have not written, and therefore it is easier to make harsh decisions, but sometimes editing your own work can feel like cutting a nose off your baby.

Directors can remain distanced from a work, while writers - by the nature of the work - cannot. You can take time and you can learn to look objectively, but taking that red pen to the page often feels like a scalpel.

So how do you get over this fear? We all know that the first draft is always bad. I think it was C.S.Lewis who said that, but there is a fear of making things worse, of cutting things you should cut or adding things which aren't up to scratch. You fear that you lack objectivity and any work on it will be pointless.
It's important to note that publishers now expect a much higher quality of manuscript on their desk, and any immediate or troublesome issue will cause them to reject you, no matter how promising your writing or story is. I will discuss a few ways in which I got over the inherent fear of editing.

First, I learned what I just mentioned; that publishers expect polished manuscripts. Sure, if they suggest a character change or a cutting of flashbacks or whatever, they will help improve your book, but only if they already know that you are not just some hack writer who would have their three hundred pages filled with issues that you may not even realise are issues. This leads me to my next point...

I read books about editing and publishers and learned what makes writing poor and how to avoid it. I am reading a book now called 'Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" by Renni Browne and Dave King, which has been greatly informative, but boiled down to a couple of points; show don't tell and avoid the hallmarks of hack writers because it will make good writing look bad. Now obviously it is slightly more complex than that, but they talk through things to look out for while editing and accepted that even the best writers do this during their first drafts. Once I knew some things to look out for, I was far less afraid to attack my manuscript. I also read a book named '77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected' so that I understood what the publishers were looking for.

Once I had an idea how to approach it, I began editing. Once I made a drastic change I had experienced what it was like to violently edit my work, and I knew it improved it. I was no longer afraid of this type of editing. I still have no idea about editing much broader things, like changing characters and such, but I'm sure I'll force myself to cross that bridge.

I'd like to add a side note about self-editing; it is free. Now Ryan (still my only follower, hooray) has recently experienced the benefit of a useful freelance editor who - for a significant but not overly expensive fee - has given him very good feedback about improving the causality and consistency of his piece, encouraged him to promote a character to a main part and given pointers on the character's voice. Ryan's book will be better for having that external eye, but freelance editors can be hit-or-miss for one reason; they aren't invested in the outcome of your novel. You've already paid them. If your book is self published and does well, then they've got their 'thank you' in the acknowledgements, but if you sell nothing, they've still got their four hundred bucks.
(Sorry, Ryan, to keep talking about you) but the first editor he hired for his first book, Aundes Aura, was cheaper than the one who worked on his most recent work. This editor did nothing other than a line edit and failed to pick up even the most basic issues with the text. They were issues all novelist might have, but ones all editors should fix. Whether she was rushed, inept, or simply disinterested, Ryan would have done a better job reading a book on editing and doing it himself.