To Write is To Edit
To edit is to distill and clarify
This news article is typical of internet writing. Presumably, a finished piece; it reads like a first draft. Fascinating fodder, delivered without the aplomb it deserves. I’ve put it on a diet and through 7 minutes of exercise (the time it took me to make the edit).
ORIGINAL
An ancient shipwreck proves the Greek historian Herodotus was correct about the observations he made about Egyptian vessels nearly twenty-five centuries ago, archaeologists said recently.
The shipwreck, discovered in the Nile River near the ancient, and now sunken, city of Thonis-Heracleion was of a ship called a “baris.” This exact type of vessel was described in great detail by Herodotus in his text “Histories” (Greek: ἹΣΤΟΡΙΑΙ) after a visit he made to the port city of Thonis-Heracleion in Egypt.
Herodotus was amazed by the way people were constructing the ship, which was used to sail across the Nile River. Etc. Etc.
EDITED
The discovery of a shipwreck last week confirms the account of the historian Herodotus, heretofore doubted, that Egyptians 2,500 years ago constructed just such sailing vessels to ply the Nile. Archaeologists from Oxford’s Center for Maritime Archeology excavating Thonis-Heracleion, once a port city submerged for millenia, came upon a well-preserved sunken vessel the Histories (ἹΣΤΟΡΙΑΙ) call a “baris.”
Thereafter, one can adduce quotes and flesh out detail.
It was short work for me, having honed my editing skills for forty years. Younger writers, without the experience and thus yet without the expertise, will take longer. But a professional writer in 2024 must surely be required to exceed the level of what junior high school students were capable of in 1964.
I chose a middling bit of writing; there is far worse, right here on Substack — it’s a great shame to see execrable writing passed off as a courageous act, especially by a certificated Ivy Leaguer. Better to keep the writing to oneself while still learning. Humility functions as a curb on novice enthusiasm to keep standards high.
FOUR ESSENTIAL POINTS
YOU HAVE TO READ IT AFTER YOU WRITE IT.
Read and re-read. Edit. Re-read again. Edit again.
Do NOT press PUBLISH until you’ve eliminated at least half of what you wrote. In doing so, the writer saves the reader the time he would have wasted because of the writer’s laziness or incompetence. I drop an essay right away, if I see that the writer has spared himself the effort of distillation and left it to me to clean up his spew.
Cut the extraneous. Know your context. You created it!
Example: “I went to the grocery store to buy some food.” Food is implied in “grocery store.” Cut the last four words.
Eliminate redundancies. Look for duplicative meaning, not just word repetition.
The last two sentences are not redundant, because the second defines the first. One could cut the first sentence, but I’ve kept it to emphasize the imperative of the verb that begins it.
Never pander to the reader.
Anyone interested enough to read your writing can look up Herodotus on his own — he who is too lazy to do so is not worth writing for.