Most of us have the experience of going nose-blind to something. If you're a cat owner, it might be your furry companion's litterbox. If you have (or were) a teenage boy, it's the fact that their room has that particular funk in it that only handling your laundry and doing some deep cleaning will fix. In short, when you spend all day, every day hip deep in something, you grow desensitized to it. It's only by leaving to go run errands, or to take a weekend trip, that you realize exactly how bad the smell is, making you wonder if something happened while you were gone.
This is why it's important for you to take a break between writing a story, and editing it. It's not for the book... it's for you. Because if you go back in desensitized to all the flaws, you aren't going to be able to clean it up the way it deserves.
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| And trust me... you want all those smells out of your story. |
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You Need To Be Fresh Before You Edit
We've all been at that point where we cross the finish line on a story, panting and exhausted. We've been in this world for so long, and we're tired of it. We don't want to think about it anymore, we just want it to be done. And for your first draft, that is perfectly acceptable. However, to return to one of my favorite metaphors, this is why you take breaks between sets at the gym.
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| Yes, I'm going somewhere with this. |
When you lift weights, you need to maintain good form in order for the exercise to put the strain on the right places, and to not hurt yourself. However, when you get tired, your form starts to slip. This means you start compensating with other muscles, and sometimes you just push through to get the right number of reps instead of focusing on the quality of those reps. This is one reason you're supposed to rest between sets; it gives your body time to recuperate, and to come back at it with the proper energy.
If you don't take time to rest when it comes to editing, then you're not going to be going in with good form. You're just going to be performing the action (physically reading the words on the page) without actually getting the intended result (analyzing your story to see where improvements need to be made). Because just reading your story again won't make it better... that's just going through the motions because, well, that's the next step.
That's the point of hitting save, and then not looking at your story again for a little while. A week, at least. Two weeks is better. Because this gives your brain time to rest and recuperate. It's even better if you can work on something totally different as a palate cleanser. Even if it's just something small like doing some outlining, it makes a difference. Because then you can come back to the job of improving your story with a refreshed mind, and a sharpened wit.
And you'll be able to actually smell the bad parts once you've been out of the house for a while, so to speak.
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