Editing, Cutting, Winning

Re-writing to get from good to great

This week I’m going to write a few posts about writing. Writing is awesome. I’ve been editing my writing and other people’s writing almost every day for a year. 

Here’s what I look for when I edit:

1. Passive voice 

2. Run on sentences 

3. Telling people what to do

4. Unnatural phrasing 

5. Me getting bored

6. “You” frame 

7. Changing between “I” and “you” frames 

8. Changing verb tenses

9. Opportunities to go deeper

10. Things that are actually interesting 

11. Things that make me laugh or smile. (Comedy gets at truth)

12. Extraneous words

13. Unnecessary repetition

14. Nonflow. Flow is fundamental.

15. Words people don’t know

16. Extraneous sentences. Either the sentence is a banger, or it tees up a banger or both

Questions I ask:

• Is this sentence/paragraph useful or entertaining?

• Does it ring true?

• Do people know what these words mean?

• Do I want to keep reading? If I stop reading or skip ahead then that section should be reworked or cut. 

Nobody taught me this. I’m sensitive to words. I tune into my body. When I read something shitty, it hurts. A shit senten…