Professional writer or not, I’m sure we’ve all been there. That familiar yet desolate place. You’re staring at a screen, your finger on the cursor, pulsing away like a little heartbeat, and you’ve read the same paragraph so many times that now, it ceases to feel like English. It’s just cursive curls and sounds. Is that really how you spell ‘orange’, anyway? What a strange word.
You think, “It’s fine. It’s done.” But in my world, the world of Blueblood Copywriting, “fine” is an entirely dangerous word. Whether I’m navigating the razor-thin margins of NHS compliance or building out the sprawling architecture of The Pith, I’ve learned that there is a massive gulf between a piece of writing that is “finished” and one that is ready.
The trap of the simple proofread
Most people think editing is just a glorified spell-check. They look for the stray ‘their’ vs. ‘there,’ or, Lord forbid, ‘bought’ vs ‘brought.’ fix a comma, and call it a day. That’s a proofread. It’s the final coat of paint on your house of words.
But if the foundation is cracked, a fresh coat of paint won’t stop the walls from shaking at the first gentle breeze.
Enter the structural edit
This is where the real magic (and the heavy lifting, or should we say, typing) happens. This is what I call the deeper loops of the process. A structural edit doesn’t care about your typos yet. It asks the uncomfortable questions you weren’t quite ready to address a la your curious aunt at the dinner table whilst the entire family listens in, bated breath, forkful of turkey halfway to their mouths:
- The flow: Does this thought actually lead to the next, or did I take a leap that will leave the reader behind?
- The weight: Am I using ten words where three would hit harder?
- The vitality: Does the tone stay true to the brand (or the character), or did I slip into ‘corporate robot’ mode halfway through?
In The 29th Loop, time and narrative repeat, refine, and evolve. Editing is much the same. You have to be willing to cycle back through your work, viewing it through a different lens each time.
A friend-to-friend tip: The “out loud” litmus test
If you want to know if your writing is actually ready for the world, here is the one thing people always forget to do: Read it out loud.
Not ‘in your head’ loud. Actually speak the words. Take to your podium and present your prose – whether to an empty room, or your old faithful dog (my chihuahua is terribly well versed in everything from medical copy to transgressive horror), regale your audience in your reverie.
When we read silently, our brains are lazy; they skip over awkward transitions and ‘fill in’ the gaps of what we meant to say. Which is incredibly clever, but entirely unhelpful during the proofing process. But the moment you speak those words? Your tongue will trip over those clunky sentences. You’ll feel where the rhythm dies. If you find yourself running out of breath before the end of a sentence, your reader is going to feel that same exhaustion.
The verdict
In my opinion, writing is never truly ‘finished’ – it’s just ‘released.’ I could read the same copy mere months later and dream up a tweak here and there – just as the seasons change, so does the script. But by moving past the surface-level fixes and embracing the deeper loops of structural editing, you ensure that what you release is elite, precise, and impossible to ignore.
Leave a Reply