The thought of editing something scared me a lot as a kid. Frustration fueled my fire because I struggled to understand most of the grammar rules that my teachers were trying to teach me. Social anxiety also plagued my thoughts when I was younger, so as time went on, I had difficulties giving more conceptual and structural feedback. As I got older, took more classes, I slowly became more accustomed to giving feedback to other writers. It reminds me of those songs that you have to listen to a couple of times to start enjoying them. I was ecstatic that the beat of the music of editing finally clicked with me.
The saying that ‘practice makes perfect’ was a tune that rang true with me. Now that I’m thinking about it, the concept of editing has been integrated through many experiences in my life like English classes, experiences with the writing center, and even experiences that have nothing to do with writing. My love for reading led me down the path of wanting to become an editor as a career. Taking courses in college like fiction workshops and even analytical classes like Dimensions of Writing, Love/Selfhood Poetry, and Advanced Composition have shaped my views of editing for the better.
Editing was woven in many lessons and pieces that I’ve done in school, and it’s fascinated me enough to want to go into the field. I’ve learned that the process of editing can be very versatile and is key to put out great work. Completing and editing a lot of different types of papers within the last few years, such as creative stories, analytical papers, research papers has morphed my view of editing based on what I’ve put out, how I can best convey my message across the different types of writing that I’m doing, and what I’m writing the piece for.
For example, this analytical paper I was working on last semester. It was a big paper for my class, and the goal was to break down and analyze a couple of poems from the 16th century. I was really struggling to put all my thoughts on the page in an organized fashion that would satisfy my teacher. Like seriously. It was like apples and oranges with our thought processes wrapped up in a very frustrating week. Thankfully, I was able to submit my drafts to my teacher, so she could share her thoughts and give me feedback on the paper. Editing it was certainly… a process. I had to change nearly everything in my draft to fit a certain structural scheme that didn’t fit how my brain operated.
Despite all these frustrations, it was kind of worth doing the edits because it allowed my brain to learn a new way to present information that was fit for things like poetry. This specific moment allowed me to grow and adapt to pieces that I’m not fully used to interacting with.
The biggest moment in editing for me has definitely been the various fiction workshops that I’ve attended over the last few semesters. These workshops are the reason I love editing so much; they allow me to work with others and assist them in putting their pride and joy out for the world to enjoy. I get to read so much versatility and personality out of the works that my classmates produce, and it helps me get tips on my own projects.
I’ve been taking classes that include them, so I can work on the best of my original work. The main theme that ran across them was having one person share their work to the whole class, and everyone gave vocal and written feedback based on what they thought of the piece. It was really interesting to me because most people focused more online edits and simpler edits for the written feedback and more overall story narrative for the in person feedback. I enjoyed receiving both types of feedback because of the exposure to my piece as well as experienced editors (and people I didn’t know) gave fresh feedback as well as had fresh eyes to view my writing.
The most memorable workshop class that I’ve taken was from a few semesters ago where I was creating and editing a chapter for a novel that I’m still currently working on. Whenever it was someone’s turn to go through the workshop day, we’d read their piece, and answer prompting questions about the piece to provide helpful written feedback. We’d then sit in a circle in class and talk about the good things that the pieces had as well as the things that the author could potentially consider when editing their piece.
This was probably the best workshop experience that I’ve had so far through these classes that I’ve taken. Each of my classmates had so much to say (a good chunk of it was brutally honest too), which allowed me to consider a lot of things when editing my piece. For example, a few of the students felt that I could increase my worldbuilding in my story, and recommended ways that I could continue adding it to lengthen it. It was incredibly helpful for me to get this kind of feedback because I had a feel on what other people thought of my piece as well as what questions arose during the reading process. It allowed me to clear up any unnecessary confusing points in my story.
My earlier anxieties about editing structurally and conceptually nearly vanished by this workshop as well because a lot of my classmates echoed some of the things that I was thinking for the pieces that we were reading. I felt strengthened by these workshop experiences because they enabled me to gain experience in editing as well as build my confidence in working with people with these projects.
Editing, as we all know, is not only for writing. People edit things all the time, speeches, videos, artwork, code, etc.. Almost everything can be edited. One class I took a few semesters ago, Digital Design Studio, that consisted of working through Adobe to do various digital art projects. I was initially weary of this class because I’m not a very artsy person and struggle to do artwork in the way that it forms inside of my head.
Through all the projects that we completed, we submitted them to our teacher, and he gave us each verbal feedback on what we could do to improve and edit our pictures to make them more seamless. It was relieving having the expertise of an artist giving feedback on how I can work on my projects. Editing the actual projects was super fun. With the help of my roommate, I learned the tools in each respective Adobe discipline and was able to work to make my pictures fit what feedback I received but also fit to my tastes. I felt great about the class overall because it gave me the ability to look at smaller details, which I can incorporate into editing writing pieces by taking time to analyze them.
Overall, I would say that my experiences with editing are no short of a rollercoaster. Not all of them have been good editing experiences, and a lot of them have left me a bit drained. However, I feel so rewarded putting in feedback for people, reading first drafts of things that people are so passionate about (pure from the brain), and even learning about things to consider when writing my own stories. Editing has shaped me in general, allowing me to connect with others and build my communication skills. Even though I started with many anxieties and fears about the discipline in general, I’m proud of myself for working through them to find something that I really enjoy doing. The time that I’ve spent editing so far is only the beginning, and I’m excited to see what this path brings me next.
It sounds like the path to learning to appreciate editing was fairly straightforward all things considered. Workshop classes can, indeed, be very valuable experiences to learn editing from, but you're also right that a lot of writing exercises contain some amount of editing to them.
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