Listen to Your Inner Editor
I’ve been working on an epic fantasy short novel project. It’s titled “The Crypt Inspector” and, surprise surprise, it’s about a guy who inspects crypts. This inspector is on a quest to stop a vengeful corpse from starting a rock giant rebellion. I’m finally at the point in the story that I set out to write in the first place: the showdown between the crypt inspector and the corpse in the middle of the rock giants’ court. I’m excited, I’m ready to write forward. Buuuuut…. Lately, when I sit down to write I’ve been feeling stuck. Not blocked, just stuck. I know the scenes I need to write and how this work in progress (WIP) ends. But my inner editor has been telling me that something is off. So rather than trying to force myself forward, I paused, circled back to the beginning of the story, and started editing.
Now, I know this move to start editing is probably making some people cringe because when you’re drafting, many believe it’s imperative to turn off your “inner editor.” The thinking is that if you’re so caught up in editing you won’t actually focus on getting the story down and it’s also easier to edit once have the entire draft in front of you. To this, I say, I agree, BUT….
The reason writers are encouraged to turn off their inner editors is that many of them have trouble separating their inner editor from their inner critic. Editing is a tool and it’s essential to the writing process. Think of your inner editor as your ride-or-die writing buddy who would give their left kidney to see you succeed. Your inner critic, on the other hand, is a total jerk who hardcore judges you and is notorious for making you feel like an imposter.
For example, if I listened to my inner critic, I wouldn’t have written this post to begin with. I would’ve felt too weird and awkward telling you what my current WIP is about. And to an extent, my inner critic is still making me feel self-conscious about it. But, I’ve also learned that the best way to silence your inner critic is to be brave, do “the thing,” and listen to my inner editor, instead.
Sometimes the only way forward is to go back to the beginning, pull your WIP apart, and inspect the different scenes and character arcs more closely. In tech, when a prototype isn’t working or something unexpected happens, engineers do a postmortem on it. They take things apart and run tests to see where things failed to identify the issues that need to be resolved (it’s a cool process to watch!). Yes, we all want to complete our draft or finish a prototype, but when it’s clear something isn’t working you have to have the humility to admit this and then be willing to find out why.
When your inner editor is sensing something, listen to it. Remember, writing is a process and it looks different for all of us. So while the goal may simply be to finish your WIP, the road to getting there can be messy and complicated and order operations are going to vary. But with the help of your inner editor, you’ll get there.
Onward 🚀
