Last year my friend and fellow editor, Lu Sexton, asked if I would be interested in developing and co-hosting online workshops for writers with her. The aim of the workshops is to dive deep into a different writing technique or maxim each session by sharing masterful examples by writers and discussing what the author has achieved and how they did it.
Now, after a handful of workshops, I realise I’m not only teaching. I have also learnt so much.
I know much more about writing than I realised
As an editor and a keen reader, of course I understood that I can tell the difference between great and uninspired writing, and that I know how to strengthen sentences and passages. But, it wasn’t until I started articulating to Lu and our workshop participants why the passages I’d chosen were so strong that I understood that all these decades with my nose in a book has taught me a lot more than I realised.
I can pick apart what the author is trying to do and how that might be received by the reader. It’s an encouraging and fortifying thing to learn and it’s given me confidence to have even deeper conversations about writing and to consider more editing service offerings (more on that later).
Read more slowly
Each of the workshops takes time to develop, but it’s not exactly taxing work to look through books by my favourite authors and find superb sentences and passages. Lu and I then bring our respective suggestions together and decide which to include in the workshop. This process means that we read slowly, carefully, to identify what the writer has done on the page and what we learn as readers from their choices.
You notice so much more when you slow your reading down. This isn’t necessary for all the reading I do, but the really good books or passages are worth taking it easy for, a bit like when you walk past a striking piece of art and you linger in front of it for longer than other pieces because you want to absorb and understand it, and admire what the artist has achieved.
Lu has even written a whole post dedicated to this.
Things are less daunting when you do them with a partner you trust
I was a little hesitant when Lu suggested we host the workshops together because I don’t love trying to articulate ideas verbally – I trade in the written word after all. Yet, I was still quick to say yes because I knew it would be fun to work closely with Lu on a project and talk and teach about the thing we love so much: good writing.
I now realise that I also said yes because I trust Lu and knew that we would feel comfortable to be frank with each other and support each other. And that’s exactly how it’s played out. If there is a passage that one of us doesn’t think works best for the workshop, we feel comfortable expressing that. We structure each topic so that we can lean on our respective strengths and preferences, and it’s truly wonderful.
Good writing is actually brilliant writing
It’s easy to identify a great story or character, but sometimes excellent writing appears so effortless that it can be easy to miss how the writer has achieved what they have on the page. When you slow down and unpick a sentence or a passage, you can see the choices that a writer has made to convey an idea or feeling or detail. It’s an art.
So much can be done with a single sentence. Take this line from Rick Morton’s memoir, One hundred years of dirt:
"He owned every room he ever walked into and seldom had to enforce the terms of his own presence."
We learn and feel so much about this person through only a short description. Morton hasn’t just written, “He was really confident.” He has shown us with an evocation of what the man’s presence was like. We can sense his confidence, his cockiness and maybe even what his posture was like. It’s not just good writing, it’s brilliant.
I love people who love writing
Different stages of editing involve different levels of engagement with your writers. In the early stages of editing, there is lots of interaction and conversation. Through this, you get to know your writer, their hopes and intentions, and you build trust and a relationship.
At the copyediting stage, there is an element of this, but beyond maybe a chat at the start and end of the edit, most of your interaction is through the comments and edits on the page. When it comes to proofreading, sometimes editors don’t interact with the writer beyond an introductory email.
Having conversations with writers in our workshops about the craft of writing and their thoughts, concerns and insights has led me to realise that I would like to work more closely with writers.
This means that over the next year, I am planning to shift away from proofreading and towards more manuscript appraisals and structural editing. This will be in addition to my first love (when it comes to editing): copyediting.
As if the writers workshops weren’t satisfying enough on their own, I’m so grateful for these five welcome realisations.
The Workshops page has details if you would like to join one of writers sessions. If you’d like to request a workshop for a group that you are part of, or to talk about your editing needs, I’d love to hear from you.