How Does Editing Best Fit Into the Writing Process? Four Key Options to Consider

When do you stop drafting and start editing?

There are lots of different ways you might approach rewriting and editing your novel … and I’m not going to tell you that there’s one “perfect” method you need to follow.

Broadly speaking, though, there are several different approaches writers tend to take. We’re going to run through some pros and cons of each.

Note: I’m primarily thinking about editing in terms of novels (or short stories), but if you’re working on non-fiction, there’s still plenty here that applies to you.

Option 1: Editing While You’re Drafting

One way of editing is to edit as you’re drafting. You write a sentence or two, or a paragraph or two, then go back to tweak it until you’re happy.

Some writing gurus would have you think this is a deadly sin of writing … but it’s not necessarily wrong.

I think every writer does at least a little bit of this type of editing, perhaps deleting a typo or changing a word, while barely noticing. I did it a couple of times in the previous sentence because I mistyped least and while.

Works Well For…

• Exploratory writers who have little/no idea of what they’re going to write until they write it. Want to cut out a tangent or refocus on a particular idea? Need a smoother transition between one scene and the next? Go ahead and edit!
• Writers who hate to move on until they’ve got it right. If you feel you really need to nail the first scene before writing the second, go with what feels right to you.

Watch Out For…

• Getting bogged down. If you constantly edit each sentence, second-guessing every word choice as you’re writing it, you might find it’s hard to make forward progress. 
• Failing to spot bigger picture issues. Some problems won’t be obvious as you go through your story sentence-by-sentence. Make sure you edit at a bigger picture level too, for things like pacing and character development.

Option 2: Editing Scene by Scene, As You Go

Another option is to draft one scene (or one chapter) at a time. After you’ve got a few thousand words and a complete-ish segment of your story, you can then go back and edit.

This was the approach I used to use when sharing work-in-progress with my writers’ group. It meant that I was able to get feedback during the draft, without sharing work that I was embarrassed to have anyone see!

Some writers also like this as a method to get started on a writing session. If you wrote a good chunk of material previously, editing it can help you get back into the flow of your story.

Works Well For…

• Sharing work-in-progress with a critique group. (If you share raw first draft material, you’re likely to get a lot of feedback on things you could easily have fixed yourself—like typos and repeated words—rather than on bigger-picture plot and character issues.)
• Beating writer’s block. If you sit down to write and have no idea where you’re going, try moving back and editing first. You may find that you spot threads in your writing that you want to follow. 

Watch Out For…

• Spending more time editing than writing. Going over the previous scene once, even twice, is fine. But if you’re spending days tweaking one particular scene rather than writing anything new, it’s probably time to move on.
• Missing the bigger picture. If you edit scene by scene, you may be great at fixing spelling errors, but you might not notice stuff that would leap out at you if you read your draft as a whole—like a wonky timeline, inconsistent character behaviour, or continuity issues.

Option 3. Completely Rewriting After You Finish a First Draft

I like to edit by starting over from scratch. After finishing the first draft (and taking a break, then reading through it), I begin again with a blank document.

Some scenes stay substantially the same as I rewrite them. Others change beyond all recognition! I’m not editing a sentence here and a paragraph there, I’m literally retyping and reworking everything.

Works Well For…

• “Pantsers” and exploratory writers who like to find out the story as they’re writing. This process means your first draft material will inevitably have some rough edges (and in my case, I usually have huge gaps, weird tangents, and major inconsistencies). Rewriting from scratch is often easier than patching things up!
• Anyone who likes to measure their progress in words written. You can race through Draft One, then you get to start clocking up the words again with Draft Two.

Watch Out For…

• Changing stuff for the sake of changing it. You might have some really good sentences, descriptions, lines of dialogue, or action sequences that came out well the first time. It’s okay to keep them as-is.
• Missing out on more detailed editing. If you rewrite from scratch, you’re going to need to follow up Draft Two with a line edit (a closer run through your novel, where you fix common writing mistakes like clunky sentences, repetitive words, and chit-chatty dialogue).

Option 4. Taking Multiple Editing Passes Through Your Manuscript (Rewrite, Edit, Proofread)

If you don’t want to start over from scratch, then another great approach to editing is to do multiple editing passes through your manuscript. You’ll probably want to create a copy of it so that you can always go back to your original first draft if you need to.

For your first pass-through, you’ll be making any big picture or developmental changes, usually working through scene by scene from the beginning. Depending on how you like to work, you might address several issues at once (e.g. pacing, character development) or you might make one key change throughout the whole story (e.g. removing a character, altering your protagonist’s backstory significantly) before then making the next major change.

Works Well For…

• Writers who have a fairly solid first draft – e.g. who outlined ahead of time. If you’re happy with the majority of your scenes, then you probably don’t want to completely start over.
• Writers who are on a tight deadline. Starting from scratch is a slower process than editing the words that are already down in front of you.

Watch Out For…

• Scenes where you do need to do more extensive rewriting. Don’t be afraid to cut a scene that’s not really working, or add a whole new scene if you’ve realised you need to expand on an important plot point.
• Doing a lot of fiddling and tweaking. Aim to make the biggest changes first, then do another pass to tackle smaller issues like sentence structure. There’s no point endlessly tweaking and proofreading a scene that you later end up rewriting extensively.

Of course, you don’t have to pick just one of these options for your own revision process. You might want to shift between them, depending on what suits you at different stages of your writing.

For instance, like me, you might focus on completing Draft One before doing any editing … but if you want to share a bit of your work-in-progress with a writing friend or coach, you might edit that specific scene.

Remember, The Writing Process Isn’t Necessarily Linear

We often think of the writing process as a linear set of steps that every project goes through in order from initial idea to final draft.

And while that’s part of the truth, it’s not the whole picture.

Broadly speaking, writing projects do go through these stages from 1 to 5. But that doesn’t mean you can’t backtrack!

It’s fine to move back at times. You could even find yourself going all the way back from stage 5 to stage 1 in some cases, like this:

• Write a scene (stage 2, drafting)
• Edit that scene quickly (stage 4, editing)
• Publish the scene on your blog as a “teaser” for readers (stage 5, publishing)
• Some time later, come up with more ideas (stage 1, prewriting)
• Rework that scene in the light of those ideas, adding significant material (stage 2, rewriting)

With a smallish project, like a short story, you likely will go through those 5 stages in order and you might not need to hop backwards at any point. 

But writing a novel is a complex process, and it’s important you give yourself the freedom to do things like brainstorm fresh ideas while drafting, or make major revisions even after you’ve edited your work.

Whatever your own drafting, rewriting, and editing process looks like, the important thing is that it suits you. 

Whether you get to the end – a polished manuscript – through completing one draft at a time or through perfecting one scene at a time, what matters is that you get there (and that you enjoy the journey).

Need Help Editing Your Own Writing? Get Your Copy of Editing Essentials

Many writers find it tough to edit their own work. However many times you read through it, you might feel that you’re not sure whether you’ve made some clumsy mistakes.

Editing Essentials is a guide to the 20 most common mistakes I see writers making. It focuses on the more detailed side of editing (so that I can give you lots of “before” and “after” examples to illustrate the different mistakes and how to fix them). It costs just $10.

Along with Editing Essentials, you’ll get a bonus “Quick Reference” guide and a detailed guide to formatting dialogue.

Psst … want the Quick Reference guide for free? Join the Aliventures newsletter. If you’re already on the newsletter list, dig out any past newsletter from your inbox (search for “Aliventures”). The download link for all your freebies should be highlighted in yellow at the bottom.

Editing Essentials isn’t a list of spelling mistakes or a detailed set of instructions on how to use commas and capitalization correctly (I’d recommend a grammar checker like Grammarly to catch errors like that).

Instead, it’s about more stylistic issues—repetitive phrasing, spelling out very minor actions, over-explaining to the reader, “head-hopping” without meaning to, and so on.