Does editing others, help you as a writer?

[Alex De Kok]

I’ve been giving some thought to the area of editing recently. I know at least two of the erstwhile stalwarts of Authors’ Hangout-as-was, Killermuffin and Wildsweetone, both told me that editing was a good way to see where to improve one’s own work. I thought I’d ask in here, so, for you editors who also write, is it true? Does editing other work help to improve your own? I don’t have enough free time at the moment to consider editing myself, unless it was on an occasional reciprocal basis, but I am curious.

Alex

 

[LadyCibelle]

I’ve been giving some thought to the area of editing recently. I know at least two of the erstwhile stalwarts of Authors’ Hangout-as-was, Killermuffin and Wildsweetone, both told me that editing was a good way to see where to improve one’s own work. I thought I’d ask in here, so, for you editors who also write, is it true? Does editing other work help to improve your own? I don’t have enough free time at the moment to consider editing myself, unless it was on an occasional reciprocal basis, but I am curious.

Alex

Hi Alex,

I can't and won't speak for anyone but myself by saying that editing is what got me to write. I never would have written anything (apart from my meager attempt at poetry) if I hadn't edited countless stories. Looking at those stories and seeing where they were wrong got me the kick in the ass necessary to write my own stories.

One thing though, I'll always repeat it for as long as I live.......editing and writing is NOT the same process at all. It doesn't involve the same part of the brain and doesn't access the same receptors either. Furthermore, being an editor doesn't keep you from needing one when you decide to make the jump from editor to writer (I've discovered it when I wrote my first story).

So, the short story? Yeah, maybe in a way does editing help improve one's writing but you don't need to be an editor to be a writer and you certainly don't need to be a writer to be an editor.

 

[Alex De Kok]

Hi, Lady Cibelle, and thanks for the reply. I take your point that writing and editing seem to use different areas of the brain. I have done a little editing, mostly for grammar and punctuation, and awkward phrasing, but rarely for content. As I'm never sure where I get my own story ideas from it seems wrong to try to tell someone else where they're going wrong in a story, unless it's obvious, and what's obvious to me may not be to someone else. I'm a fine one to speak - I was re-reading some earlier work of mine today and realised I'd changed the main protagonist's surname between Part 1 and Part 2! I'm not saying where, as no-one has commented yet... An editor might have caught that, but as the two pieces were posted separately, perhaps not.

Under two different names I have 66 pieces posted on Literotica, not counting poetry, and a lot of them have H's, so, as a writer, I must be doing something right. (Sadly, my recent prize-winning tale quickly lost its H!) Of those 66 pieces, only seven or eight were ever edited by someone else, but they were improved, I feel. Why I've never tried to get myself a regular editor I'm not sure. Maybe it's time. Not an onerous task - those 66 pieces have taken me six years to produce. I'm not the world's fastest worker!

Thanks again,

Alex

 

[Weird Harold]

...is it true? Does editing other work help to improve your own? ...

Editing and Writing are indeed different skills, but I think editing for others -- or just Reading other writers' work analtyically -- does improve an author's writing.

It is the struggle to analyze what someone else has written that make sthe difference. Proof-reading for typos won't help as much as Editing for content or continuity does. Explaining problems to someone else forces you to really think about why they are problems rather than simply recognising that something isn't right or doesn't work.

It's very similar to the adage, "Teaching a subject is the best way to really learn the subject."

 

[LadyCibelle]

Editing and Writing are indeed different skills, but I think editing for others -- or just Reading other writers' work analtyically -- does improve an author's writing.

It is the struggle to analyze what someone else has written that make sthe difference. Proof-reading for typos won't help as much as Editing for content or continuity does. Explaining problems to someone else forces you to really think about why they are problems rather than simply recognising that something isn't right or doesn't work.

It's very similar to the adage, "Teaching a subject is the best way to really learn the subject."

I think WH has hit the nail on the head with this! But, it's not surprising that it had to come from him to be so concise.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Sure, I have grown as a writer by editing. I think the exposure to different ideas is a key, but even more important is the exposure to different words. People have a tendency to approach things in different ways. Editing opened my eyes to separate aproaches and new elements.

 

[kbate]

Generally it helps only in that, from time-to-time, editing forces me to pull out the grammar and punctuation guides - and I learn about forgotten rules.

 

[snooper]

Yes and no.

Yes, it reminds me of the need for care, and no, it occasionally gets me into bad habits.

 

[Weird Harold]

Yes, it reminds me of the need for care, and no, it occasionally gets me into bad habits.

I've found that reading too many poorly edited stories with alot of misused words and homonym problems makes me unsure of which is the correct usage or spelling. It doesn't get me into bad habits, but it does shake my confidence in being able to spot errors.

 

[gauchecritic]

If nothing else, editing helps you keep your writer's eye in whilst procrastinating.

Giving criticism (slightly different from editing) is also a good way to keep up your basic English Appreciation.

I'm quite amazed by the number of writers that didn't appreciate that they included themes, metaphors etc until I pointed them out.

I'm also amazed at being able to blag my way through an arguement about my work by pointing out things that I didn't consciously include.

 

[Seattle Zack]

Absolutely. Editing other manuscripts makes me more aware of writing as a craft. It's a tricky balance you have as a writer, not only communicating to your audience but producing a consumable (lol) product along the way. Having someone review your work is invaluable, especially becaue you're blind to the flaws from the git-go.

--Zack

 

[little_E]

Newbie weighing in

Hi--
I'm really new here, but I thought that I might put in a word in. I'm an English grad student majoring in writing and I also teach first year composition at my college. I have to tell you that I really think that reading all of my students' absolutely horrible efforts and trying to play both copy editor and literary editor to them has played havoc with my own writing skills. One is often influenced by what one reads; I know this is very true for me, and I've found that I need to consciously read very good literature to counteract the effects of the horrendous efforts of my students.
The experiences of teaching and editing all these papers has made me hyper-conscious of grammar rules, but as someone else pointed out, it also makes me overly conscious of common mistakes and now I almost see them when they're not there. I get nervous whenever I see "whom" or "its" because now I've seen them used incorrectly so often that I tend to just freak out without even noticing if they really are right or not. It's painful. I need to stop teaching and get on with my writing.
Sorry if this ended up being a rant about how much I dislike teaching-- I really do believe that it has somehow worsened my writing skills.

 

[Alex De Kok]

Hi--
I'm really new here, but I thought that I might put in a word in. I'm an English grad student majoring in writing and I also teach first year composition at my college. I have to tell you that I really think that reading all of my students' absolutely horrible efforts and trying to play both copy editor and literary editor to them has played havoc with my own writing skills. One is often influenced by what one reads; I know this is very true for me, and I've found that I need to consciously read very good literature to counteract the effects of the horrendous efforts of my students.
The experiences of teaching and editing all these papers has made me hyper-conscious of grammar rules, but as someone else pointed out, it also makes me overly conscious of common mistakes and now I almost see them when they're not there. I get nervous whenever I see "whom" or "its" because now I've seen them used incorrectly so often that I tend to just freak out without even noticing if they really are right or not. It's painful. I need to stop teaching and get on with my writing.
Sorry if this ended up being a rant about how much I dislike teaching-- I really do believe that it has somehow worsened my writing skills.

And there, in a nutshell, is why I hesitate! For real horror, try marking computing students' essays . . .

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread. I suspect my best option is to look for a fellow writer or two who are interested in a reciprocal proofread/basic edit routine.

Alex

 

[CopyCarver]

And there, in a nutshell, is why I hesitate! For real horror, try marking computing students' essays . . .

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread. I suspect my best option is to look for a fellow writer or two who are interested in a reciprocal proofread/basic edit routine.

Alex

Whatever works for you is, obviously, the best answer. Since you asked, however, I wouldn't recommend tuning out all voices except those that resemble your own. You could easily miss many that are well worth hearing, along with the ones that are not.

The notion of somehow getting "contaminated" by other people's styles--or even egregious errors--strikes me as faintly ridiculous. It's almost impossible to go through a day without hearing someone say, "that don't hardly make no sense" or expressing absolute certainty that Kansas has mountains taller than the Rockies. That doesn't mean we're all at risk of speaking like Gomer Pyle or buying stock in companies that manufacture perpetual motion machines. Written language is no more corrosive to the brain than its verbal counterpart.

As Ken Kesey suggested, the secret lies in taking what one can use and letting the rest drift by.

 

[snooper]

And there, in a nutshell, is why I hesitate! For real horror, try marking computing students' essays . . .

Not a problem. Make them write them in COBOL and use the compiler to weed out the errors.

Silly story:

An experienced programmer came to join our company but he was not used to our hardware platform. He wrote his first programme for us and submitted it. He was happy to get only one error message - until he read "This is not a COBOL program".

 

[Weird Harold]

Written language is no more corrosive to the brain than its verbal counterpart.

To those of us who are visually oriented, bad writing IS more "corrosive" than it's verbal counterpart -- but then I tend to pick up accents that I'm exposed to for any length of time too.

I tend to rely on whether something "looks right" to spot errors. Too much exposure to bad spelling and commonly misused words tends to erode that sense of "looks right" for me.