We all have one. The editor invisible to everyone but ourselves. The one who sits on your shoulder while you write or edit, whispering into your ear. The sweet-nothings are few and far between. This editor reminds you that you can’t write, that you have nothing to say, that no one will be interested in your fictional heroine, your opinion, your life story, the objective article you’re working on. As an aspect of yourself, you can’t banish this intrusive editor. But you can muzzle that voice until you need it.
Freewriting
Free writing can mean whatever that term conjures in your head, but it’s often the term used when you shut down your inner critic by writing free of punctuation, grammar rules, formatting, and sometimes, story logic. Close your inner ears and just write—no periods, no quote marks, no capitalization. No paragraphs, no indents, any character can talk to you, any connections or thoughts happen on the page in real time.
Just write down your scene, section, chapter, poem as it comes to you. No rules, all holds barred. Set a timer and don’t stop typing or writing until it dings. Build your time from ten minutes to twenty to an hour, whatever’s comfortable for you. Whatever you write doesn’t have to make sense, just be generally on target for the purpose you set for that piece.
Talk Back
Every time your inner editor offers a negative comment, counter it with a positive comment out loud.
This story/sentence/idea sucks.
“Writing takes practice. Every story/sentence/idea I write makes me a better writer.”
I suck.
“I’m improving everyday.”
You’ll never get better at this.
“Of course I will.”
This scene makes no sense.
“I’ll decide that on rewrite/when I edit/after I have a whole first draft.”
You forgot to capitalize that city name.
“I’ll fix it later.”
I know nothing about Kentucky liquor laws.
“Notation right here. I’ll look them up later.”
That’s not how to spell ”obfuscate.”
“I’ll use spellcheck. Later.”
Drown It Out
Meditate before your writing session and clear your head. Fill it up with story and when your editor speaks up, ignore it. Or link your writing sessions to a playlist or other stimuli to trigger writer mode, and sink into your world so deep that you never hear that little negative voice, only your muse.
Ensure your boundaries with a closed door or safe space, your daily obligations with a timer, and your story by getting it down on paper. Don’t let your inner critic loose before you know the shape of your work, where you’re going with it, and have the beginning, middle, and end written.
Release The Beast – With Caveats
Only after you have all the words and set your restrictions mentally, do you unleash your inner critic. Label your writing sessions at this stage as”rewriting time”. Personal”you” and”I” comments should be met by ignoring them or a positive comment out loud. Only constructive criticism from your inner editor is allowed free run.
Need a better transition between scenes? Great. Write it. A stronger motivation for a main character? Brainstorm it. Improved syntax? Switch the words around for a more active sentence or cut all those unnecessary throat-clearing words now that you can see what you wanted to say. A more effective hook? Can you echo or tie-in your ending somehow? Or see that better hook a couple of pages in? Go for it.
Training your inner editor by hushing it with positive self-talk and labeled writing sessions(“drafting” “rewriting” “copyediting”) makes the writing life less self-destructive and way more productive. From experience, I can tell you it also improves your ability to separate story from creator and provide truly constructive critique to others.
Please share your thoughts on, or your experiences with your inner editor. Join me on the first Friday of each month for exploration, discovery, and discussion of the writing life
Liz Jameson
Inspiring!
I’ve read that writing as soon as you wake up, before your inner editor is awake, is a great way to sneak past him/her. I’m not a morning person, and I work fulltime, getting up at the last possible moment, but I know that this is great advice and hope to incorporate it at some point.
Thanks!
Elle Andrews Patt
It’s true that writing half-awake can sometimes bump you through a sticky spot for enough words to get you past it and rolling again, but it’s not always possible or practical to create that circumstance, lol. I do write early with Twitter’s #5amwritersclub a few times a week, but it’s always 5am somewhere, we say, so anyone can pop in and grab a little motivation at anytime and leave some, too. In the long run, developing one or more of the suggestions above gives you more tools in your writer’s box than just hoping you can stay sleepy, lol.
VERONICA Helen HART
Would that I could.
Elle Andrews Patt
Lolol :HUGS: Well, the IE can never entirely be banished, but an hour of letting it talk to itself in the background is helpful, lolol.
Patrick
Thanks for sharing, Elle. I always enjoy reading your articles.
Elle Andrews Patt
Thanks, Patrick!! That’s nice to know 🙂
Ken Pelham
Good advice again, Elle! I might give your freewriting tactic a shot, but I wonder if I really can write without punctuation and caps.
I try not to worry about quality so much in a first draft. Just get it down. When some misguided person asks to read the first draft I tell them in honesty that it wouldn’t make any sense to them and they’d think I’m the worst writer that ever lived. In reality I’m not even in the bottom fifty.
Elle Andrews Patt
The best thing Stephen King ever did for writers was include that short story draft in “On Writing” , lol. I know reading that made me go, “oh, snap, it’s totally okay for a first draft to be total crap.” I don’t know why that’s so hard to internalize, but it really is even though our first drafts are our first forays into a story. Now I think of drafting, and not just the first draft but perhaps the first few drafts, as just a construction stage on the way to a polished story and that takes a lot of pressure off. After all, a skyscraper starts life as a hole in the ground.
Niki Kantzios
Sounds like you’ve been listening in on my head! When the IE has cast me down, I like to reread some of the nice things editors (or writer’s group or agents, et al.) have said about one story or another. Then I say, “See? I can, too, write!” Thanks for offering a word of wisdom.
Elle Andrews Patt
I think inner editors are like drill sergeants, they all get the same script to riff from! Re-reading kind comments and positive feedback on our work as a reminder that a reader enjoyed it is a great suggestion 🙂
Roxane Wergin
Perfect timing for this advice – I’m writing my first novel and recently started struggling with that inner voice that wants perfection as I write…this significantly blocks progress. Thanks for the advice!
Elle Andrews Patt
Yay! Glad this was timely for you. It seems to have become a thing for first-time novelists to think they’ll hit the mark on the first draft when writing is like any other craft, practice improves the end result. You’re doing something for the first time, why should you be any good at it? Write three or four novels and they’ll get better and better, but every story is the first time you’re writing that particular story, so yes, every true first draft is going to be a hot mess 🙂