Dear Geist,
I know you folks are big fans of revising a piece of writing, but it can go too far, right? I’ve gotten skittish about editing my stuff, after seeing people in my writing workshops revise and rewrite and rework and overwork a story or essay until it is dull and shapeless, and the spark that gave it life in the first place has been stamped out.

Dear Liz,
Yes, we’ve all seen—or lived—the sad process of what seems like over-revising. It is almost inevitable in a writing course, where schedules and class sizes force writers to cram all phases of writing into a very short time. Ideally you would plan and research, then let that material sink in, then write a draft, then let the draft rest for at least two weeks (see the Lit-Lorn post
for more on that), then begin to revise. But in scheduled courses, the steps must be condensed. Typically a writer finishes a first draft quickly, under great pressure, then flings it out immediately for colleagues to critique, then produces a revised text within days. In our experience, that’s more under-revision than over-revision, because it’s so rushed that neither writer nor writing gets any quiet time.
As H. L. Mencken put it: “0.8 percent of the human race is capable of writing something that is instantly understandable.” And according to the writer and teacher William Zinsser, “Beware of dashing. ‘Effortless’ articles that look as if they were dashed off are the result of strenuous effort.”
No piece of writing is ever done, and any writer can get caught up in over-revising. But if you allow each draft to rest, and keep your drafts just in case, you are likely to end up with a good one. Meanwhile, as well as
.
—The Editors