How to Silence Negativity and Edit Your Work with Confidence
Posted on Jan 27, 2012 in The Write Stuff | 2 comments
When I started copywriting, I had a fear of editing. Reading back over what I‘d written made me think of those chain smoking, red faced editors portrayed in TV and films who bark orders from behind a huge desk. I’d imagine this editor grabbing hold of my writing and massacring it with a thick red pen or screwing up the pages and tossing them into the wastebasket shouting, ‘It’s just not good enough!’ As I read over my writing, this fictitious internal editor was cruel and unforgiving and I became so scared that I could no longer tell if what I was writing was good or not.
I realised though that this internal editor had the best intentions and that perhaps he just needed a little training to offer more constructive criticism. I reasoned with my internal editor that he had to cut me some slack so I could do my job as a writer. By using these tips below I could ensure that the editing process now enhanced my writing instead of destroying it.
Take a break
When you finish a piece of copywriting it can be useful to sit on it for a couple of days and purposely not think about it. This gives you the distance you need to look back over what you’ve written without being too precious about the work.
Go with your instinct
The most helpful tool I have in my editing toolbox is gut instinct. Following your instincts can’t be taught but it can be developed with experience. You’ll know when you’ve found your instinct when you get that nagging feeling during editing that you have to rework a sentence or paragraph, even if you don’t want to, because something tells you that it just isn’t working. Your instinct can also highlight the positives in your work and if your gut tells you that something’s good then leave it alone as you’re probably right.
Shorten your work
There are always opportunities to shorten what you’ve written and make it easier for your audience to read. Shortening your work includes keeping an eye out for long words or phrases and switching these with one word alternatives e.g. choosing ‘forget’ instead of ‘fail to remember’. If you get stuck, pull out your thesaurus, it might seem a bit old fashioned but it will make your job much easier. Also look out for words or sentences which slow you down when you’re reading and cut out anything boring or irrelevant.
Ask opinions
Letting go of your copywriting and showing it to other people is not easy, especially if they take on the persona of a hardnosed editor. Even if you’re a freelancer who works solo you should still be able to find friends, family members and business associates who will be happy to read your work for you. Ask them to be honest and be prepared for their feedback but remember you only have to take on board their constructive criticism.
Editing doesn’t have to be the brutal job I once thought it was. By stepping back and following the tips above, I can now edit my writing in a much quicker and more effective way.
Photo Credit: Nic’s Events
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I’m a writing and editing coach and my favourite tip for self-editing is to let your computer do some of the work. For example, use it to check the readability of your writing. There is a free tool in MS Word that will let you do this (check the Help menu for advice on activating it) or go to an online copy-and-paste source:
http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp
You should be aiming at a Flesch-Kincaid score of 65% or higher and a grade level of about grade 9.
Here’s another trick: Eliminate words ending in -tion because they are usually formed by taking a perfectly good verb and turning it into a noun (eg: describe vs description). THEN you have to use another verb — usually a boring one like “is” — to make the sentence. Try to eliminate as many -tion words as you can!
Hope this helps!
Daphne those are both really great tips and thank you so much for stopping by with them.