Editing is an art form in its own rights. It’s the makeup of writing, changing potentially bad copywriting into something that can attract the right kind of attention. But for editing to be effective, it’s important to understand the goal of the copy in front of you.
If you’re in the position of editing copy written by another writer, you may safely skip the next step. If, however, you aren’t relying on a copywriting service and will be editing your own words, the following is important:
Create distance
Let your copy simmer for a few hours at least. You need to approach it with an objective mind, instead of the subjective one that wrote it. This approach makes it easier to spot your own mistakes before publishing, makes information consumption easier, and therefore increases the conversion potential.
Brevity
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings”
– Stephen King, On Writing
Writers get emotionally involved with the copy they write, even if those words will eventually belong to someone else. It’s hard to edit out all your clever bits, artful persuasions, and subtle innuendos and so on, but in the end it’s almost always necessary. Only when these perfectly match the context of your writing, when they perfectly contribute to the big idea, then only can you consider leaving them in the copy.
“Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.”
– Louise Brooks
After you’ve "killed all your darlings", you have to kill them some more. Scrutinising every sentence and eliminating superfluous words can help the audience consume your writing with less effort. Start by trimming out conjunctions, articles, and adjectives. Remove hyperboles (unless they are true), and be selfish with your explanations. If a sentence can be rewritten in the active voice without upsetting the surrounding copy, do so – it will add dynamic to your writing.
Structure
Back to the purpose of your copy; with non-fiction copy, it’s best practice to place the most important information first – the very reason your readers will read what you’ve written. This is the basic principle of the inverted pyramid writing structure.
A good editor will not only compare the brief or instruction with the entire document, but will ensure that the most important points of the copy, from the audience’s point of view, are mentioned in the first few sentences. The subsequent sentences and paragraphs should then flow from one to the next to deliver information in an easily consumable manner.
Read backwards
During the entire editing process you’ll most likely go through the copy a number of times. When you’re satisfied that you’ve done a good job, one last thing remains: re-reading the copy from right to left, last word to first. And there’s a special reason for this:
Reading from left to right, top to bottom, is something the human brain is used to. In fact, it’s so used to it that it will simply ‘assume’ what the next word or words are, and skips to the next cluster of new ‘information’. Reversing this process interrupts the brain’s ‘assumption’, and reveals detail, as well as a number of typos and grammatical errors that have been missed during the conventional reading process.
Using these four tips can greatly improve the quality of your copy, and should be added to your existing cheat sheet of editing techniques. To the experienced reader well-edited copy will come across as polished and succinct; to the casual reader it will be informative and easily digestible. These, after all, are the hallmarks of words that make an impact and convert casual readers into permanent clients.