There's no two ways about it. I like editing other people's work far more than I like editing my own. Perhaps it's because their writing style is sufficiently different from mine that I can better see the sentence structure. Maybe it's the fact that I've got no familiarity with the words or the story and the pleasure comes from having greater objectivity. Whatever it is, the fact remains. I not only prefer editing other people's work, I find it easier too.
I also think you can learn a lot from it. Paying attention to the process you go through can help to highlight the order in which you examine the various components. This translates across to editing your own work. When editing a story you've written the process of examining the prose is forced back into your subconscious by your familiarity with your own work. So... The more aware you are of the process, the better you will become at editing your own work and you'll find it easier to detach yourself from even the most personal of your stories.
Having attempted to review/edit around seven short stories and three novel chapters I've realised the following...
- I'm still very much a beginner at this writing lark.
- I find it very difficult to read through an entire story before going back and reviewing it. If I spot something that I want to comment on I prefer to do it then and there. This may disrupt the flow of the story but if I was reading it as a published piece the issue would disrupt it then as well.
- Looking at other people's sentences is a great way to learn to be efficient with your words. You can practice removing those unnecessaries without getting all precious about how it will ruin your magnum opus. When you see how much better someone else's work is without all those extra words you'll be a lot more comfortable removing them from your own.
- The fact you know so little about the story means you don't have all the information (obviously...). This means you've got a much greater awareness of what information you're lacking at any given point in the story. This is especially true when it comes to attaching dialogue to characters.
That's about all I can come up with for now. There were a couple of other ideas floating around in my head but they didn't translate to the typed word. I can only hope they're now ingrained in my subconscious and make me a better writer!
Oh yes. One more thing. You get to see other people's clever turns of phrase and fancy sentence structures... and you can commandeer them and bastardise them for your own purposes! Sad, slightly evil perhaps, but true.
Editing Others
There's no two ways about it. I like editing other people's work far more than I like editing my own. Perhaps it's because their writing style is sufficiently different from mine that I can better see the sentence structure. Maybe it's the fact that I've got no familiarity with the words or the story and the pleasure comes from having greater objectivity. Whatever it is, the fact remains. I not only prefer editing other people's work, I find it easier too.
I also think you can learn a lot from it. Paying attention to the process you go through can help to highlight the order in which you examine the various components. This translates across to editing your own work. When editing a story you've written the process of examining the prose is forced back into your subconscious by your familiarity with your own work. So... The more aware you are of the process, the better you will become at editing your own work and you'll find it easier to detach yourself from even the most personal of your stories.
Having attempted to review/edit around seven short stories and three novel chapters I've realised the following...
That's about all I can come up with for now. There were a couple of other ideas floating around in my head but they didn't translate to the typed word. I can only hope they're now ingrained in my subconscious and make me a better writer!
Oh yes. One more thing. You get to see other people's clever turns of phrase and fancy sentence structures... and you can commandeer them and bastardise them for your own purposes! Sad, slightly evil perhaps, but true.