A step by step guide to polishing your work.
by Nicole Bianchi
Recently, I was talking with a friend who was overwhelmed by the editing process. How do you know when a blog post is finished and ready to be published? How do you remember everything that you should do to optimize your post?
That's why I put together this article sharing my simple & effective 7-step editing process, along with the editing advice I've gleaned from various famous authors over the years. It will guide you step by step as you edit your writing.
This article focuses on editing nonfiction, but I follow a similar process for editing both my fiction and nonfiction writing. You can adapt this advice according to your own writing projects. Read on for my editing tips.
1. Outline
When I have an idea for a new article, I spend time jotting down notes, researching (if necessary), and thinking of different ways I can approach the topic. Before I begin writing the piece, I gather all of those notes together and construct an outline. (If I were writing fiction, this would be the plotting stage.)
You wouldn't begin building a house without construction plans that carefully measure the foundation, how big each room will be, and other precise details. Otherwise, you might end up with a house that looks like . (Bonus points if you know what movie that's from.)
Similarly, I find when I don't outline my piece beforehand, the first draft ends up a tangled mess. That's because I'm developing my ideas as I go. If I outline first, the piece usually ends up not requiring as many revisions.
Here are two tips for outlining your piece:
1. Summarize what your article is about in one sentence. This sentence should present the main idea or argument of your piece. You might end up including this sentence in the introduction of your piece, but even if you don't, it will be a helpful guide as you write. If a paragraph doesn't relate back to that original theme or support your argument, delete it.
2. After you've written down your one-sentence summary, you can plan out the main points of each section of your piece. Organize your thoughts into a logical and chronological structure.
2. Write Your First Draft
The next step, of course, is to actually write your piece. John Steinbeck advised,
"Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in the process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material."
I try hard to follow Steinbeck's advice, but I am guilty of rewriting whole paragraphs as I work on my first draft. So don't beat yourself up too much over this. Every writer has their own unique way of working. William Zinsser observes in his book On Writing Well,
"Some people write their first draft in one long burst and then revise; others can't write the second paragraph until they have fiddled endlessly with the first."
If a paragraph is giving you trouble, however, remember that you can always skip it and come back to it after you have gotten the rest of the piece down on paper. You might end up discovering that the paragraph wasn't necessary after all.
3. Substantive Edit
A substantive edit (also known as a developmental edit) means analyzing the structure and flow of your piece.
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