Step Away From The Manuscript
(Yes, this is permission. No, it's not an excuse.)
A while ago I got a piece of advice from a professional editor. Someone who had spent years working inside a big publishing house, reading manuscripts for a living. She is the kind of person whose opinion carries weight I’m surely not qualified to argue with.
The advice was simple: when you finish a draft, don’t touch it for at least three or four months. Work on something else. Live your life. Let it sit.
I nodded politely and said “yeah sure!” And went home to immediately start editing.
She was right.
Here’s the thing she explained, and that I only truly understood after ignoring it several time: when I edited a manuscript immediately after writing it, I wasn’t reading what’s on the page. I was reading what’s in my head, including the parts I never wrote down. I knew all the lore. I knew the character motivations. I knew what I intended in any sentences. I knew everything. It was, in my head, a masterpiece. And this made me fill in the gaps automatically, because my brain wasn’t actually reading.
When I started taking some times off. Let’s say at least three month. Working on something else. Something shifts. I came back to my manuscript and read it with a critical eye. Sure, I already knew the story, the ending and all. But my mind stopped filling in the gaps and I was ready to read only the text that is on paper. Which is, of course, exactly how readers will experience it.
As one novelist puts it: “The novel is too much with us as we are writing that first draft. We need distance after we’re done in order to come back with fresh eyes to really see its flaws, its hidden messages, the ways in which our subconscious was hinting at what needs to be done. Jumping back in too soon can take away all of that.”
In other words: the writer who just finished the draft knows too much. The reader knows only what’s on the page. You need to become the reader.
If need another reason to justify to yourself, and in case “my editor said so” doesn’t sound enought, there’s also a neurological argument.
Writing and editing use different brain functions. The creative, immersive work of drafting and the logic-based work of editing are genuinely separate cognitive modes. And trying to switch between them too quickly doesn’t serve either process well.
Your brain needs to forget, just enough, before it can see clearly.
After months inside a story, it’s hard to see what needs trimming, what’s unclear, or which scenes need a makeover. Step away for a while. It lets you regain objectivity, and those things become clearer.
The irony is that the rest isn’t passive. It’s doing the work that conscious editing can’t do, letting the subconscious process what the draft is actually saying, not what you meant it to say.
So. The bad news: the advice is right, and you should probably wait.
The good news: this is one of those rare moments in the writing process where doing nothing is, technically, the correct strategy.
Play that videogame. Binge watch the show. Start a different project. Focus on something else. Let the manuscript be a closed document for a while.
When you come back, you’ll read it like a stranger. And that’s exactly who you need to be.
— Your friendly neighborhood Procrastinator
Coming next: AI. The war is long but there’s an immediate battle we need to win right now: labels.
"the writer who just finished the draft knows too much. The reader knows only what’s on the page. You need to become the reader" - loved this line!
I needed this advice right now, thank you!!