I’ve noticed that I have a hard time editing a story if I’m enjoying it.  I’ve even caught myself referring to stories as ‘fun’ reads, as separate from material I’m editing, but often they can be of comparable skill and even by the same author, so the distinction must be in my approach.

For example, in our writers group I will occasionally pop into someone’s (online) room and browse through their excerpts as a quick pick-me-up.  Usually this happens when I know I don’t have time for a thorough edit so I allow myself to overlook any flaws and skim past problem areas.  Because these particular friends are honed in their craft I can do this without coming face-to-face with jarring errors.

On the other hand, when I enter the same writer’s room in order to edit the process is painstaking and not much fun.  This would be becuase editing is work, at least for me, and takes more effort than a light read-through.  No surprise there.  I’ve found a similar, though not the same, rule holds true for my own stories.

What I’m wondering is, which one is going to get the piece ready for publication?  The obvious answer, the editing, is true up to a certain level of polish, I believe.  But after that I think we can over edit.  I think we can take all the life out of a story until it is harder to enjoy ‘just for fun’ rather than as an excercise in the craft.

This would be important because the majority of our audience, we hope, is going to enjoy reading our stories, not slave over them.