Editing: Or How to Hate Your Own Words in Five Easy Steps

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of finishing a first draft. You sit back, exhausted but proud, thinking, Yes. I have written a book. I am unstoppable.

Then, you start editing.

And that’s when you realize: Oh no. I have written a disaster. I am terrible at this.

Welcome to editing—where confidence goes to die, and every word you once loved now haunts you. If you’re new to this emotional rollercoaster, don’t worry. I’ve outlined the five simple steps to completely hating your own writing.

Step 1: The Re-Read (A.K.A. The "Who Wrote This Garbage?" Phase)

You open your draft, expecting brilliance. Instead, you find:

• A scene you swore was amazing but now reads like a bad soap opera.
• The same word repeated 47 times on one page (Why do my characters constantly ‘sigh’? Are they asthmatic?).
• A plot hole so big you could drive a truck through it.

You start questioning everything. Did I really write this? Was I drunk? Should I just delete the entire thing and move to a remote cabin where no one will ever know I attempted this?

Step 2: The Denial Phase

“It’s not that bad,” you tell yourself. “I just need to tweak a few things.”

Cut to three hours later, and you’ve rewritten the same paragraph 16 times, only for it to still sound wrong.

Maybe it’ll magically fix itself if you ignore it. Maybe if you close your laptop really hard, the problem will just disappear.

(It won’t.)

Step 3: The "Why Did I Think I Could Write?" Crisis

This is where the true self-doubt kicks in. Every sentence feels clunky. Every metaphor is cringe. You start comparing your draft to your favorite books, wondering why your dialogue doesn’t sparkle like theirs.

You consider hiring an exorcist to remove the demon that clearly possessed you while writing this mess.

You briefly contemplate switching careers. Maybe something less painful, like lion taming or professional beekeeping.

Step 4: The Editing Spiral of Doom

At some point, you start over-editing. You delete a sentence, rewrite it, delete it again, then somehow end up rewriting it exactly the way it was in the first draft.

You rearrange entire chapters, only to realize the original order was better.

You replace words with fancier synonyms ("walked" becomes "strolled," then "sauntered," then "perambulated"—until your character sounds like they time-traveled from the 1800s).

You enter a never-ending loop of second-guessing.

Step 5: Acceptance (Or, “I Guess This Will Have to Do”)

Eventually, you reach the point where you can’t stand looking at your own words anymore.

Is it perfect? No. Will it ever be? Also no. But at some point, you have to let it go before you edit the life out of it.

So, with a deep breath, you publish it… and immediately start panicking because what if they hate it?

Congratulations. You survived editing. Now, go celebrate. Preferably with cake. And possibly a nap.

Until the next draft, anyway.