3 Ways to Let Your Writing Fly

Camp NaNoWriMo 2014 has officially launched! Whether you’re writing a new novel, tackling a screenplay, or finishing an existing piece of work, Camp is a writing free-for-all. For those of you still on your publishing journey,  editor Holly Brady shares why it’s crucial to let go of your writing… and start something new:

When I was a young writer, I was given a piece of advice that has proved to be quite true: what separates professional writers from amateurs is that professional writers know how to let go of their writing.

What does it mean to let go of your writing?

Of course, you want to revise your first draft. You want to deepen your characters, sharpen motivation, fix the plot, and polish the imagery. But there comes a time when you also must give up the control you’ve tried so hard to maintain through the writing process. You must loosen your grip. Specifically, you need to:

Make those cuts

It’s tough to cut out entire paragraphs, sections, characters, subplots when you’ve spent weeks laboring over these things. But I’ve never seen a manuscript that doesn’t benefit from a focused round of cutting. 

How do you know what to cut? Look first at the stuff you’re trying to fix. Before you spend several days rethinking that scene, or rewriting that page of dialog, or reworking that subplot, try cutting it entirely. Often, you’ll find that the story gets tighter, and your burden becomes lighter because all you are doing is cleaning up evidence of the cuts; you’re not trying to fix anything anymore. Have courage. Let it go. 

Trust your editor 

Regardless of whether you’re working with a traditional publisher or self-publishing, you need to work with a professional editor at some point if you hope to compete in an overstuffed market.

Trust your editor. Let him or her help shape your work. After living with a manuscript day and night for months, it’s almost impossible for you to differentiate the stuff on the page from the stuff still swirling in your head. A good developmental editor can show you where you need to patch and fill. And in the process, he or she can add a professional polish to your writing.

But how do you find an editor to trust? This is a particularly personal decision. Some writers prefer “hands-off” editors who suggest broad changes and expect you to make those changes yourself. Others prefer editors who scrub the manuscript—making word, sentence and paragraph changes, and adding suggestions for plot changes as they go.

When you’re deciding on an editor, you have every right to ask for a sample edit of several pages of your manuscript (at no charge). Do you like what they’ve done? Do you agree with what they’ve suggested you do? Have they kept your voice, but made your writing crisper, smarter, more dramatic? If yes, then hire them. If you’re not sure, keep looking.

Let this one fly, and get started on the next

As soon as you sense that this manuscript is ready to go, as soon as you feel the lift, start your next project. There’s no better way to get your first book noticed than to publish a second.

Holly Brady is past Director of Stanford Publishing Courses. She now works as a developmental editor and publishing strategist with writers who are interested in using new media tools to self-publish their work.

Top photo by Flickr user Ars Electronica.