Writer’s Blocks – Editing While Writing

Has this ever happened to you? You have this great story idea, or a really interesting topic you want to write about. You’re super excited to get words on paper. You sit down and begin to write. You’re cruising along and about a page or two in, or maybe a few paragraphs, you stop. Why do you stop? Because you’re rereading! You are rereading what you wrote and you are editing.

The Editing Loop

I’ve written so many opening paragraphs of short stories. When I finished those first paragraphs, instead of pressing on with writing, I stopped to read them. After that, I started editing what I had written. Then I started second-guessing the direction (of two paragraphs!) and rewrote them. Rinse and repeat.

This a terribly slow way to write. In the past, it has frustrated me enough that I would just give up. All of those short stories with ah-mazing first paragraphs were never completed. Not one.

First Drafts = No Looking Back

Instead of slamming on the writing brakes every other page to edit, this time I tried writing straight through the first draft of my book. I was armed with a loose plot outline, my main characters, and a target of at least 50,000 word target. Like allowing myself to begin writing without all my research answers, it was a liberating experience.

On a reread of the first draft, I realized I’d completely forgotten one of my characters at the end of the story. Characters knew each other before they had been introduced. The color of someone’s eyes had changed. Somehow, someone’s car had bampfed from one location to another without being driven there. All of these details were mistakes, and it was okay! There was a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Of course all of these mistakes were corrected (I hope) when I worked through a second draft, and then shifted into editing. If I would have stopped and edited along the way, I’m not confident I would have finished the book.

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