I’ve had two blog posts in my saved list for awhile now. This one has been on that list  since April 2016! So I figured it was time to dust if off, rework it, and share it with all of you! My life has changed a lot since 2016 when this was originally written. I’m no longer in college- which is where I got the recommendation for this editing process- and truthfully, I haven’t used it much since I graduated college. However, I still want to share the post about when I used it. I’m going to try it again to see if it still works for me like it once did or if I need to look into another editing process and see if that works better. So let’s dive into what past me had to say about this editing process! I will italic what was originally written in this post to help avoid any confusion anyone might have!

I started my editing process a few years ago after taking a Dramatic Writing course at my college. I had asked the professor for advice on how to make my plays better and he told me one method I could use is ‘The Jigsaw Puzzle’ method (that’s what he called it, not sure what the official/technical name is). Basically it’s taking your piece, cutting it into sections, whether it’s by paragraph or scene or stanza (depending on what you’re writing), and then placing things in a different order to see if things seem to flow better. You can add lines, scenes, stanzas, etc if you need them, but it’s a way to look at your piece in a new way and see what you might need to add or what you might need to take away to strengthen the piece.

I actually find this editing method to be really useful and helpful to me. I’ll take my piece, hang it up on my wall, and then starting cutting things into their sections, moving them around, adding lines or cutting lines, and for some reason I can’t explain, this method just really works for me! I’m not sure I would call it a Jigsaw Puzzle method because it doesn’t remind me of a puzzle, but it’s still useful!

Like I mentioned above, this post was originally written in 2016, back when I was still in college and my writing needs were different than they are. It will be interesting to see if 2020 me will still find this method helpful or not and I plan to update all of you on this as I try it again!

So my questions for all of you is- What is your editing process? Have you stuck to one process over the years or do you switch your process from time to time? Are there any editing process you have more or less effective than others? Let me know your thoughts! I am really curious to see how others edit their pieces.

Next weeks post will be a Harry Potter shop tour, but I won’t say which one. So keep an eye out for that and have a great week of writing and editing everyone!