Should you edit while writing a first draft, or keep pushing forward through errors until the draft is finished?
It’s a question many new writers ask, but it doesn’t come with a simple yes or no answer. What is certain is that if you’re hitting the backspace key more often than letter keys, you are slowing your progress.
The same goes for checking your spelling. Yes, online spelling correction is relatively quick, but do you need spelling perfection in your draft?
The real question is whether editing during a first draft saves time later. Or, does it simply slow down the process of getting a draft finished with no real benefit?
The conflicting advice about editing while writing
I’m sure you’ve read advice saying that you should never edit while writing.
The intention is that you need to concentrate totally on getting the words down as fast as possible.
Another way to look at it is to separate your writing phase from your editing phase, so don’t stop your writing flow for minor errors.
But you might also read that fixing problems immediately helps you in the long run. That means any errors or typos you can catch and fix as you write will save you time later.
Occasionally, you might also read that quickly editing each page as you write will help you write a cleaner first draft.
You might think that these approaches collide with each other, but that’s not entirely true.
Whenever you write a first draft of a book manuscript, or even an article or blog post, it will never be perfect.
No matter how much of a perfectionist you are, mistakes and typos will pass under your radar while you’re writing.
For authors in the past, there was always an eagle-eyed editor waiting for a full draft to rid it of mistakes, plot errors, and typos.
But today, few authors or writers have that luxury backstop. It’s up to you to decide on the best way to produce a clean final draft.
Defining your drafting process
As with a lot of writing advice, nothing is set in stone because every writer has a different way of approaching a draft.
In my case, I know I have a foot in both camps. I do tweak and correct a little as I go, but also try to keep the words flowing freely.
Checking and fixing a draft is much quicker and easier now with all the writing and correcting tools that are available.
But this is a line I never cross. When I write, I don’t use any tools other than my word processor and my imagination.
If you have a grammar checker enabled while you’re writing, it can create constant interference. It’s like having someone leaning over your shoulder as you write.
Whether you’re a believer in writing without any editing, or believe that a little editing while you write is okay, never let tools run that can interfere as you write.
Your process will also depend on what you’re writing.
If you write articles or blog posts, it’s much faster to write, correct, and publish.
But for an author, it’s much more complex. However, a good idea is to break your writing drafts into chapters.
This is also a good writing management practice of saving a manuscript in chapter files and not as one huge manuscript file.
You might decide to treat each chapter as an individual writing draft and do your corrections and editing as you complete a chapter.
However, all of these options will fail to find the most challenging part of writing and editing. And that’s logic, story consistency, plot traps, and incorrect facts.
No number of tools or AI checkers can help with those aspects of editing and proofreading.
That’s why it doesn’t really matter if you edit while writing, or write without editing. It’s more about when and how you spend your time.
It’s all about using your time efficiently
Whether you’re writing to a deadline or not, you want to finish a first draft, revise and correct it, and proofread it as quickly as possible.
That’s why the conflicting advice you may have read can be true at the same time.
If you write as fast as possible and ignore any errors, you’ll certainly finish your draft quickly. However, because you’ll have made a lot of mistakes, it will take you longer to correct.
If you make minor edits as you go, it will take a bit longer to write, but you’ll save some time in your editing phase.
What’s worked for me is lightly correcting as I go for drafts up to around 3,000 words.
But for longer forms of writing, I like to break it up into chunks of about 5,000 words, but with almost no corrections.
The reason I differentiate is that long texts, like a manuscript, need much more structural attention. It’s more about the story, plot, characters, and timelines than grammar and punctuation.
For an article, though, it’s mostly about minor spelling, punctuation, typos, and grammar fixes.
Occasionally, there might be a problem with an argument or the order of certain sections, but these are usually quite minor fixes.
Whatever process you choose, it’s always a good idea to make it a habit because it will lead to a more productive and repeatable process for you.
Summary
Whether you edit while writing or not, you’re not making a right or wrong choice.
Either approach can be equally productive as long as you are careful in your editing and revision stages.
You might be quite happy with racing through a first draft and leaving everything else until later.
Or, like me, you like to catch the most obvious errors as you write, but don’t worry too much if you miss a few, or even many.
Remember, your main priority is to finish writing a first draft. Because without one, there’s nothing to revise, edit, perfect, or publish.
Related Reading: How To Organize And Manage Your Writing Drafts
