Showed my editor a draft I was proud of and she tore it apart in 2 minutes

She told me to cut the first three paragraphs and rewrite the opener, and after I did it the piece actually got 3x more engagement, has anyone else had an editor save them from their own bad instincts?

2 comments

2 Comments

alex3073d ago

Oh man, that's basically my entire writing career right there! I turned in a blog post once that I thought was basically perfect and my editor just went "start over from scratch" and I was so mad for like a whole day. But when I actually did what she said, it ended up being way better and got way more shares than anything else I'd written that month. It's wild how attached we get to our own words even when they're clearly not working. Honestly there's something really humbling about having someone who's not in your head just point at the weak spots and tell you to fix them.

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sandraflores3d agoRising Star

Oh trust me @alex307 I feel your pain on this SO much. I once spent three days on a piece and my editor told me to cut the first two paragraphs and rewrite the whole thing. Wanted to scream but she was totally right, it made everything so much cleaner. It's like you need someone else to see the forest for the trees when you're too close to it.