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| Editing is where you discover (over and over again) how disordered and maladroit your unmediated thoughts are. It's also where the real leaps can be made. Think of any piece of writing that you like and the chances are it was not plucked fully formed from the author's forehead. Well known literary anarchist William S. Burroughs stated fustily that writers should be prepared to rewrite at least three times. Similarly 'A line may take us hours/ But if it does not seem a moment's thought/ Then all our stitching and unstitching/ Has been for nought.' - Yeats. Check for bad ordering of information, bad grammar, bad logic and unnecessary words. Also, reconsider sentences because you just don't like them. You'll often react instinctively to fugitive grammatical errors or communicative fudges before your intellect identifies them. Some sentences are simply bad for no definable reason. If you don't like something, you don't have to live with it (in writing at least). |
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