EDITING: Sculpt a work, but don’t destroy voice

We are all our worst critic.

Recently, a colleague of mine wrote an account of his bout with suicide. Following scholarly tradition, he asked me to edit it.

The piece surprised me. It broke through the usual doctor-patient relationship I create with texts. I was affected, emotionally, and my opinion of a great many things changed.

So as I scrawled editorial notes on the page, correcting grammatical minutia and spelling, I had an out-of-writer experience. I saw my own contribution to the constant conversation that is writing – and it was paltry.

I, the editor, wasn’t adding anything to my colleague’s piece. Instead I was chipping away at this fantastic, earthy sculpture. I was re-enforcing the self-critical idea that something must be wrong with his piece; I was re-writing it to sound like me.

In college, I have concerned myself so much with editing that I have forgotten to write. I edit others, I edit myself, and I can’t even post on Facebook without a few re-writes and conscientious edits.

It takes a great effort to share anything written, because of how quick we are to edit one another.

Writing, like speaking, exists to communicate our ideas, so people hundreds of miles, or years, away can share it. The point of writing is not to show off your comma control. To write is to share an idea.

Editing exists to clarify the text so nothing prevents its communication. Editing shouldn’t consist of turning the text into a miniature of the editor’s writing.

Of his craft, Earnest Hemingway wrote, “There is nothing to writing, all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

So, my collegiate fellows, don’t cauterize yourselves. Plenty of people will try to staunch your writing with their preconceptions of how it should be, and you don’t need to be one of them.

We are our worst critics, but we don’t need to be our worst editors.

—Hannah Clark, Copy-Editor