Editing Someone Else’s Work Will Help Your Own

Everyone who writes, and I’m talking emails and texts and whatnot here, edits their own work to varying degrees. You might gloss over for typos before you hit send (or have your program do it for you). You might be so careful as to read it aloud or save it as a draft and come back later with fresh eyes (I’d recommend both for anything really important that isn’t needed immediately).

But how many of us actually take the time to edit someone else’s work?

I did this in my prior job on occasion – reviewed emails and documents before they made their way to the clients. And I’d say that it helped somewhat. Trains the eye to look for strange things. Missed phrases or chopped sentences. The odd line break where one doesn’t belong.

Editing someone else’s fiction, though, is an entirely different beast. Here you’re not so concerned with corporate language. Here, you’re looking to see if things like tone, conflict, character motivation and setting are addressed (in addition to all those typos and grammatical checks). You might think that the task would be annoying (and at times, sure), but what I’ve found is that you’ll get plenty of benefit for your own writing as well as helping out a friend (or client).

You’ll get to immerse yourself in a different tone and see how it’s constructed. When you read a novel for pleasure, odds are you’re trying to get swept up into the story. The only time you pay strict attention to sentence construction is when it pulls you out of the narrative (usually for the negative). When you edit the same work, however, you deliberately look for how the author is putting sentences together. Why do they choose these words, that cadence. As the pages roll by, you’ll understand how they go about building the vibe of their writing. If it’s different from your own, then by the end of the book, you just might find you have a new tool to employ. A new style should you choose to use it. Or, if nothing else, an appreciation for another way stories can be told.
You’ll see your own faults in other’s words. Every writer has ticks. The kind of fallback words or strategies they turn to time and again. Readers may recognize them, and some may like them. Editors, as I do when I edit my own work, will come to learn a writer’s quirks awful quick. When you edit someone else’s story, you’ll see their crutches, their turns of phrase or punctuation tricks. You’ll find some that annoy you, some that need excising, and some that make you smile. But you’ll notice, and the next time you go back to your own writing, you’ll find yourself paying closer attention to your habits. Maybe even change a few, for better or for worse.
You’ll learn about a different type of target reader. If you, like me, write science fiction, odds are you have some ideas about who’s reading those books. The sort of things the readers like. Their hobbies and so on. Editing another’s work, especially if it’s in a different genre, can be a mind-bending experience. Editing a romance, for example, can introduce you to a whole new suite of expectations. Of characters and decisions and conflicts that simply wouldn’t enter the discussion for your next galaxy-spanning space romp. You can then take the knowledge that you’ve learned from the editing, the tropes and the twists and the turns and slid some of them into your own work. Add a bit of unexpected spice, and maybe bring in a few curious souls from the other genre.
You’ll remind yourself what it takes to get from here to there. It bears repeating that many of the books we pick up and read are the products of rewrites, of edits and drafts and so on. If you’re a writer, it’s easy to compare yourself to those polished manuscripts, and it’s often disheartening. When you open the door to look at a work in its early stages, it’s often a reminder that no work starts off perfect. The piece you’re editing is just like a work of your own – it needs to grow into the final product that’s going to make it into stores. Seeing another writer go through the same struggles that you deal with is empowering, helps bond you to one another. And maybe you’ll take it a little easier on yourself when the next scene you write doesn’t quite cut it.

Overall, editing someone else’s work can be a wonderful, growing experience for you and the person whose work you’re editing. As with anything, though, you need to decide what type of writing you’re willing to look at, and how much time you’re willing to spend. I was doing this as a favor, and so was doing a more general copy edit and thought I’d jot down what I got out of it, which, as it turns out, was quite a bit.

Now, as ever, back to telling more stories.