You’ve crossed the finish line of the marathon that is writing a piece, only to find yourself at the base of a mountain: editing. Intimidated by the climb? Let editor, writer, speaker, and dancer Adolfo Aranjuez be your guide through the alpine. This July and August, Adolfo is leading a self-editing essentials workshop series at Writers Victoria. In anticipation of the workshops, Tegan Atkins, Writers Victoria Program Admin Officer, wrote to Adolfo about the self-editing process.
Adolfo Aranjuez is an editor, writer, speaker and dancer. He has worked across periodical, book and digital/web publishing for over fifteen years, having held editorial tenures for anti-racist literary platform Liminal, screen journal Metro, LGBTQIA+ magazine Archer and the Melbourne International Film Festival. His essays, criticism and poetry have been published widely in Australia and abroad, including in Meanjin, Right Now, Screen Education, The Manila Review and Cordite. Alongside editing and writing, he has hosted and appeared on panels, run mentorships and workshops, judged literary prizes, acted as industry advisor, and performed movement and spoken word. Find out more: adolfoaranjuez.com
How can a writer know when it’s time to begin the first edit? Are there certain signs to look for such as a certain feeling, a word count goal, simply finishing the story and typing ‘the end’, or waiting for the solar eclipse to pass overhead?
Yikes—if we relied on solar eclipses or ineffable inner signals to tell us when first drafts were ready, we’d run out of reading material quickly! Apart from reaching the word limit or fast approaching the deadline (which are logistical rather than qualitative factors), I’m afraid there’s no definitive indicator for ascertaining edit-readiness. For my own practice, I’m a firm believer in prioritising the externalisation of the full idea, as it’s infinitely easier to start editing when all the ‘jigsaw pieces’ are in front of you—especially given that editing’s first stage looks at big-picture elements like structure, logic, cohesion, perspective and voice.
I’d say that’s the first ‘tell’: do you feel that pretty much everything you’d like to say is already on the page? (We’re talking about what, not how for now—there’ll be time for refinements during the later editing stages.) If yes, set the work aside so you can form a critical distance from it (at least a day, I reckon), then give it a good, thorough reread. You’ll soon start noticing things jumping out at you: inconsistencies; missing bits; too much or too little detail; ineffective ordering of information; an out-of-place or badly worded sentence, paragraph or even whole passage.
What’s your opinion on the phrase ‘kill your darlings’? Have you ever faced this predicament in your own writing and editing practice?
Funnily enough, I’ve just enacted this very piece of advice while writing a forthcoming essay for, well, Kill Your Darlings. (And this won’t be the last time!) I find that, as writers, we can swiftly fall prey to the temptation to overwrite, overexplain, over-clarify, over-describe—but, sometimes, what’s called for is a self-effacing restraint. A written work has two faces: its job isn’t simply to capture the author’s ideas, vision and voice in their entirety on paper, but also to ensure that this tangible manifestation is comprehensible to the reader.
If what it takes to push your work from good enough to excellent is omitting that passage you’re fond of but which ultimately adds nothing to the reader’s understanding—as was the case with my KYD essay, which originally had an extra paragraph of historical/theoretical trivia—then so be it! Or to appropriate Coco Chanel, who offered similar wisdom for fashion: sometimes what’s necessary for an outfit to truly hold together is to take one thing off before heading out the door.
What advice would you give to writers who are perfectionists and are stuck in the editing phase, but want to be published?
Well, I’m one of these perfectionists. I can’t tell you how many hours, days, even weeks I’ve spent fine-tuning and fixating, lying to myself that I’d stop fiddling with ‘File-final-v3.docx’, only to revisit it with Track Changes on and save it as ‘File-final-v3b.docx’. (I have four versions of this very interview you’re reading.) Honestly, this impulse is both commendable in its persistence and corruptive in its stalling capacity. Because that’s the thing: it’s partly procrastination, a betrayal of one’s lack of faith in oneself.
Of course, it’s reckless to just submit a piece’s first or second draft—we’re not talking about that. But having reached a point where the structure and flow are relatively solid, what you’re communicating at the sentence level makes sense, and the only remaining tweaks are things like whether enormous should be replaced with gargantuan (hint: maybe try a metaphor instead of pilfering from the thesaurus) … well, I say be kind to yourself, hit ‘send’ and let the universe take the reins. Also: don’t forget it’s part of the editor’s job to subsequently help you perfect the piece and, unless you’re psychic, it’s near-impossible to pre-empt every single criterion they’ll measure your piece against.
The question of where to get published is another topic altogether. But in brief: I recommend, at the very least, familiarising yourself with what the publication or publisher has recently released. One of the things that can really get a commissioning editor offside is a submission that obviously isn’t fit for the outlet. If the author won’t put in the effort to check if their work aligns with what the publication/publisher stands for and who their readership is, why should the editor invest the same? (And, no, please don’t then obsess about this!)
You’ve worked as a brilliant editor for years, how do you know a piece (short story, poetry, essay, etc.) or a book has potential?
All of this depends on the genre, format and what the author brings to the table, so let’s talk in super-general terms.
For fiction and poetry, it’s about the uniqueness of the vision or narrative, along with the author’s command of the form and mastery of expression. For nonfiction, it’s to do with the argument’s rigour, how the work handles (or plays with) truth, and what it contributes to the larger body of scholarship or history. As for the writer, their authority on the story or subject is key: do they have a distinct perspective, do they handle contentious material sensitively, is their voice memorable, and most of all, are they clear about who their work is for (audience) and what it’s seeking to achieve (purpose)?
Beyond these lofty considerations, an editor also has to think about the work’s and/or the author’s marketability, what niche both will fill in the publishing and/or literary landscape, and the anticipated response from readers and critics. It’s a sad reality, I know, but publishing is a crystal-clear example of how art and commerce are intermingled in capitalist societies; if no-one reads (and pays for) a book, magazine or literary journal, the business won’t be able to survive.
Without giving too much away, can you please give us one top tip to edit a manuscript?
I’ve been doling out this top tip since 2008, when I was a fledgling editor for the youth literary journal Voiceworks, so no risk of revealing too much! Imagine you’re on a walk with a close friend and they ask you about your current project; if you can’t confidently tell them what your story/essay/poem/book is about in one to two succinct sentences, that means your readers won’t be able to, either. Should you find yourself in that situation, dive back into your draft and make some adjustments until you can arrive at a point where you can ‘blurb’ your own work without difficulty. Your fictitious friend, your future editor and your prospective readers will all thank you for it.
Learn valuable self-editing skills and techniques with Adolfo Aranjuez in his workshop series. Register here.