Hello, dreamers. I haven’t been doing much editing lately. Mostly it’s been short fiction, as I prepare for my eventual next round of submissions. But I have several editing projects in progress, and I’ve come across a unique tool for editing: the “phone edit”.

I happened across this randomly. I was out with a few friends at my usual out-of-the-house writing spot, and no tables were open. I was itching to get things done, so I simply opened a story I’d been editing on my phone. And suddenly, everything changed.

I began making edits rapidly, rearranging things, altering words. I found myself seeing the story in a completely different light. Since that night, I’ve found it’s worked on every story I’ve tried it with. Just seeing the story formatted to fit my phone screen changes how I view its wording and structure.

It took me a while to realize why this had happened: it was a change in perspective.

As writers, we sometimes fail to realize just how deeply we become attached to our stories. You stare at something long enough, and you find you can live with it. It’s fine. Over the years, I’ve come to realize I have a sort of sense about each story. If I look over a story and feel good about it, but as soon as it’s not in front of me I sour on it, something is wrong.

I always take time away from a story before I edit. At least a week for short fiction, typically at least two for a complete novel. I call this distancing myself from the story. Getting it out of my head, so when I sit down to edit I’m viewing it through more objective eyes. But that’s kid stuff. To really dig into edits, it helps to change your perspective.

Besides editing on my phone, I’ve found changing other aspects of the experience helps. I always listen to music while writing (I usually put together a playlist for each story). But I listen to different music while editing, to keep myself from just getting sucked back in. I take more frequent breaks, during which I don’t just get up and stretch; I read something else. Scientific articles, sports news. Anything to keep the story out of my head. I’ve even experimented with changing locations: sitting in different places while writing vs. editing.

All of this is designed to shift my thinking, to let me take off the “writer” hat and put on the “editor” hat. And so far it’s worked pretty well. The first phone edit I did was on my story Casual Brutality. I did it shortly after the story took silver honorable mention in Writers of the Future.

This past week, that story was bought by Analog. So take my advice, and change your point of view. – MK