Last chapter I mentioned editing, and that I had a great editing tip to give you. What do I mean by editing, though, and how serious should you be about it?
Let's see here.
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Editing is revising your work to ensure excellence, and you should be as serious about it as your writing.
Assuming you want to put out great work, which is why you're reading this book, you should not publish something unedited.
If something is worth writing, it's worth taking care of, too. It's like a friendship or a relationship. Such things aren't one and done; they require nurturing. After you finish writing your story, you need to go back to it and review it. Check it for typos, for plot holes, for language... Make sure it's spiffy and beautiful. Make sure it's crisp and clear.
When I say go back to it, though... when?
You need to give your story some space before editing it. Give it three or more months.That's the tip, and why?
When you're in the zone writing your book, it will read one way to you. You'll eventually finish it and think, "Hey, that was pretty good!" Even on a read through a week later, you probably won't be able to distance yourself from the mindset you had when you wrote it.
However, to reference one of my first pieces of advice, the reader isn't you, to edit your work you need to be as unlike you as possible, and only time can help you forget your work. Only time and space can give you new eyes to see.
When you edit your story, you want to be as "out of the zone" as possible, so you can read your work honestly. Some passage that might have seemed important or clever before might make no sense now, or sound dreadful. What you had thought was successfully witty might be successfully confusing or clunky.
As a young person, it's hard to find this patience to wait. I want to share this story now! But it's good to work on patience. Patience is among the most important things just in general, and we can see how it's critical to our writing in other ways, too: such as working ahead to improve our mental health, such as reading tips books like this one, and such as writing for hours and hours to improve.
Writing is an art of patience.
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