Step by Step Sprint System for Editing Faster
Part 1. Summary – A Two Tactic System for Editing Faster
Here’s my first stab at a system, or workflow, for editing faster. It’s based on two tactics. The first tactic is to edit in short sprints lasting only twenty five minutes, where sprinting is meant to sharpen your focus. The second tactic is to edit through a piece of writing in multiple passes. In chronological order, those editing passes are 1. editing for structure, 2. Editing for impact and persuasion, 3. Editing for conciseness, 4. clarity, 5. style and 6. final proofreading. Each pass may require its own sprint. In other words, the system consists of several successive, short sprints of highly focused editing, with each sprint focusing on one or more aspects of the overall editing process.
Part 2. Backstory – The Editing Sprints fit into a Larger System of Researching, Outlining, Writing, Editing, Publishing and Promoting Sprints
Long before I adopted editing sprints into my workflow, I had adopted writing sprints based on a book by Chris Fox of the San Francisco Bay Area writer’s community. I found that the writing sprints worked so well that I extended them to editing. I reckon that sprinting forces your mind into sharp focus on the task at hand. It also gives you a motivational boost to beat the clock. It compels you to write and then edit several hundred words within the allotted time. It also compels you to complete a definite number of sprints within the work day. You also get a motivational kick from knowing that each sprint will take your work a solid step forward.
Sprints can last as long as you can sustain your focus. I started at five minutes and have worked up to twenty five. I use a free timer app from FitAtMidlife. The app allows me to set up all my start, finish and warning bells, sprint and rest durations and so on. I keep a record of the number of words that I write or edit for each sprint to track my growth as a writer.
Part 3. Details – More About My Multi-Sprint Editing System.
I can now sprint for twenty five minutes, for both writing and editing. Twenty five minutes is enough to typewrite a rough draft of six hundred words. It’s also enough to complete a single pass of editing. My goal is to write 1500 words in a 25 minute sprint, then edit that in a 25 minute editing sprint. That’s only 60 words per minute.
But editing entails several passes. First you’ll recast the structure. Then you’ll refine the impact and persuasiveness of your claims and arguments. 3., you’ll edit for conciseness by cutting redundancy, crutch words and other forms of wordiness. 4., you’ll hone the clarity of your writing. 5., you’ll refine its style. 6., you’ll proofread the draft and give it a final review. But you’ll only do that after taking a break to see it with fresh eyes.
Sprint One – Edit for Structure
First rework the structure of your draft.
Move the concluding statement or the main point of your draft to the beginning. State your purpose first and then support your point through the rest of the article. Unless you’re writing a work of fiction, a cliff hanger or a mystery thriller, you don’t want to keep the audience in suspense.
With the main point stated first, organize the ideas in your draft into an effective structure according to how they fit together or relate to each other. To do so, you can choose an effective structure from the six options covered in the Little Red Writing Book (under Principle 4): Chronological, Comparative, Sequential, Causal, Evaluative and Categorical.
Incidentally, the structure followed by this article is Sequential, written to spell out a step by step system.
Once you’ve committed to an effective rhetorical structure, organize the body of your draft into an optimum number of sections, usually three. These provide the supporting arguments and illustrating details to communicate your point without overwhelming your reader.
Once your draft is organized into three main sections, with an effective structure for the ideas, and the main point presented at the beginning, you can zoom in to rework the structure of each paragraph. Ensure that each paragraph contains a strong topic sentence supported or developed by the sentences that follow, and written according to a tidy structure of ideas.
The fifth task of your first sprint is to rework the structure of the sentences. But the bulk of that will happen in subsequent sprints.
Sprint Two – Edit for Impact and Persuasion
With the structure sorted out, you can now focus on boosting the impact and the persuasiveness of your article. Scour the draft for unsupported claims, then supply the supporting evidence or delete those claims. For example, you can provide concrete and personal examples. Also strive to to “show rather than tell,” to make use of visual persuasion. Consider adding persuasion triggers to your argument, by making appeals to urgency and popularity. Otherwise take the high ground and make your arguments watertight by citing hard facts and proven conclusions. When you’ve finished adding persuasive content, make sure you ruthlessly edit out any unpersuasive “word salads” that might have infected your work.
Sprint Three – Edit for Conciseness
Now it’s time for the ruthless task of editing for conciseness, in three ways. First ensure your verbs are all strong and accurate, not relying on crutch words or modifiers. Second, impart agency into your writing with the active rather than the passive tense. But don’t go overkill. It’s fine to use the passive tense for continuity from sentence to sentence. Third, cut out all redundancies and replace them with fewer words that stand on their own. Fourth, ruthlessly cut any sort of rambling vagary, waffling, aside, parenthetical statement, or word salad that strays from your argument or otherwise fails to carry your point forward. A useful tactic for doing this is to contain all such content in parentheses. Parentheses provide a painless and potent tool for identifying all of the extraneous or unrelated side comments and phrases that detract from rather pressing home your point. Later, you can delete everything in parentheses. Your aim is to convert your work into a concise approximation of plain English.
Sprint Four – Edit for Clarity
Strive for clarity in your fourth sprint. Break apart unwieldy, run-on sentences. Strive for writing that’s readable at the sixth grade level. It helps to read your work aloud, and to read sentences in reverse order. Both tactics help you detect stylistic slovenliness. Persevere at breaking down complex sentences. Recast ambiguous referring phrases, and don’t shy away from repeating words to do so. Then furnish your work with transition words and phrases to carry the reader effortlessly along a smoothly flowing train of simple, clear and concise sentences that comprise tidy paragraphs. There’s no shame in using online tools, for example, Grammarly, to simplify your sentence structure. Simplicity brings clarity.
Sprint Five – Edit for Style
In your penultimate sprint, you’ll edit your work for style, where the epitome of style is clarity and conciseness. Once you’ve achieved that, you may want to mirror the language style of your audience. Use their expressions, terminology and turns of phrase, so long as you spare them of wordiness. In other words, mirror your audience while maintaining the universal appeal of clarity, conciseness, and continuity.
Also strive to be descriptive, specific and concrete rather than abstract and vague. In other words, show, don’t tell.
If you happen upon a turn of phrase that you find clever or witty, it’s best to delete it. Stick to what rings true.
Sprint Six – Final Proof and Review
Only perform the last sprint of proofreading and reviewing with fresh eyes, and a fresh mind, by letting the draft simmer in your unconscious mind overnight or a few days, to let your mind recover from all the intense focus.