I have a confession: Try as I might to follow the writer’s maxim to “write first, edit later,” I just can’t seem to stick with it.
“Write first, edit later” is one of the more common ground rules for writers. If you want to be a great writer, you’ve got to create that first draft without inhibition. Just vomit those ideas out on the page. Don’t even think about editing, fixing grammatical errors or problems with syntax, or other stylistic issues. Just write. Just “give your creativity free rein” as you create your first draft, knowing you can go back and fix it later.
So say the write first, edit later proponents. And they’re probably right. After all, John Steinbeck followed this rule. According to this Psychology Today article, the author of The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and other classics advised writers to “write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.”
‘[W]rite freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down.”
John Steinbeck
I understand the reasons behind this rule. Toggling between that free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness approach to writing to the more analytical and critical editing role can disrupt the flow. And as we writers know, we need to maximize that flow state as much as possible, especially in this time of digital disruptions and interruptions.
Speaking of digital interruptions, I was scrolling through X (formerly Twitter) recently when I discovered a discussion about this very topic. Looking in on that discussion, I see I am not alone in this struggle to separate the writing and editing processes. In fact, it was this online discussion that inspired me to write this post.
The responses, as you might suspect, were varied.
Writing+Editing=Wrediting
Wrediting is my portmanteau for the practice of editing as you write. This portmanteau will probably never catch on because it’s about as awkward as one can get, but then again so are redditor (an editor on Reddit) and jeggings. Even “blog,” short for “weblog,” took a while to catch on. If wrediting catches on, I might even write a craft book, On Wrediting. But for now, I’ll have to settle for this blog post.
But I digress. And if I weren’t in the flow, I’d go back and edit that paragraph completely out of this post. My sidebar about portmanteaus is extraneous and unnecessary. Maybe I’ll follow the “write now, edit later” advice and delete it entirely, once I’ve written this thing. But probably not. Because then I’d have to delete this paragraph, too.
Anyway, wrediting is the term I use to describe this toggling between writer mode and editor mode. I think my career in journalism and public relations played a role, when I had to quickly produce copy, whether for a newspaper or an official communique from the university administration. I had to get the writing down quickly, and didn’t have the time or luxury to set aside the work before editing or revising it.
Nowadays, in my retired life, I’m not harried by those deadlines, but I still can’t shake some of those deeply ingrained habits.
Sometimes I can, though. I don’t always default to the toggling.
Sometimes, when I’m really in the zone, I just write that “shitty first draft” (Anne Lamott’s term) and set it aside to edit later. But even when I do edit while writing, I try to minimize editing mode. Sometimes I just go right into editing mode at the completion of that first draft, only to realize it isn’t really complete at all, and get to revising or rewriting the text.
The other exception to my wrediting approach is when I write by hand. If I’m drafting something by putting pen to paper, I don’t edit until I begin transcribing it at the computer keyboard. Then there is my morning journal, which is also handwritten and which I never edit. I suppose that journaling approach might be called “write first, edit never.”
Mark D. White, a professor of philosophy who wrote the aforementioned Psychology Today article, is in the wrediting camp. He writes:
I always edit while I’m writing. It’s the only way I can feel good about what I’ve done. I make sure every sentence sounds exactly as I want it to sound; I make sure every paragraph is structured in a way that makes my point as well as I can; and I make sure the paragraphs flow in a way that makes my argument as clearly and carefully as possible. I can’t move on from words I’m not happy with, promising myself to fix it later; instead, I need to get each sentence, paragraph, and section right so I can write the next one in a way that flows from it. Luckily, I’m no perfectionist, but I do have to be satisfied with each bit of writing before I can move on to the next.
What about you? Do you write first and edit later? Or are you a wreditor, like Professor White and me and several writers in the X writing community? Let me know, and if you start bandying the phrase wreditorTM around, please be sure and give me credit! :)
Top photo via Pexels.
Andy writes! 
I am a wreditor like you, probably for the same reason–all those years in journalism and public relations. I do believe in the power of Anne Lamott’s “shitty first draft,” but I have a tendency to clean the bathroom often : )
What a way to build on that metaphor, M’del!