Leave it Fallow

I've been blogging about writing more literarily. This blog is simply about a technique that a lot of writers use to give them distance as they approach editing.  As one writes, magic happens.  Characters that have been extensively described, drawn, outlined, etc. come to life on the page.  Settings come to vivid color with their visceral scents, sounds, sights, and flavors.  The writer dives into a world, either meant to represent something real or imagined.  The writer often comes close to the material, bonding in a way that is unlike anything else.  You, as the writer, come so close to the material that it hurts to cut anything.  This is why writers need distance from the piece before you can begin to edit. 

How does one achieve said distance?  As with most things, the best way to achieve distance is through letting time pass before editing.  How much time is entirely up to the writer.  It could be a few days, a few weeks, or even a few years.  Sometimes, there is no option to dive right into editing.  But, for me, the ideal is to let as much time as can be managed before editing. 

When I edit something I just wrote, I'm in the same place intellectually, emotionally, and physically that I was when I wrote it.  At best, I'll find the things I considered faulty in the first place, grammar issues, spelling issues, and other such glaring issues.  But I can't really rethink the concept, characters, and shape of the piece.  I wanted it like like this, so like this it must be. 

However, if you can allow yourself a week, a month, a year, or more while you work on other pieces, this would be ideal because then, you can see it from a bit of a distance.  You can see better what works, and what doesn't.  If you can get the help of heads outside your own, you can achieve even greater distance.  As I go back and revise short stories I wrote years ago, I don't even remember what I was thinking the first time.  I can slash out large spans of wordiness, rename and revamp characters, delete adverbs, redirect the whole story, and just make it better because I'm no longer the writer I used to be.  If I've been refining my skills, I will better know how to tackle what once looked fine to me. 

Look at the pieces you just wrote.  Then, set them aside.  Go back to something you wrote sometime ago.  It's now the perfect time to revise.