Or, to go by another title long-time readers of this site will recall, The Death Spiral.

Welcome back, writers, to another installment of Being a Better Writer, where today we revisit and old topic once again. If you’ve read that old post before, well, stick around, and if not, then today is your lucky day.

The older post in question is over six years of age, which might as well be a century to some denizens of the internet. It is also, I’d argue, one of the more important posts for a young writer to be found here on the site. Occasionally, it’ll be linked or referenced somewhere, and a host of new hits will swarm over it for a week or two. But there are also times when it languishes unread for a period, with the title not drawing in a lot of new writers who otherwise should be checking it out.

Seeing that as in the last month I’ve had multiple real-world discussions about the event that both it and today’s post will discuss, IE, the early editing trap or “Death Spiral,” I decided to put this one back on the list and revisit it. Which is about all the preamble we need to dive right in. So whether you’re a new writer or old, go ahead an hit that jump, and let’s talk about a problem that’s plagued writing and brought an end to projects for as long as writing has existed.

Because if you’re not careful, it’ll do the same to yours.

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Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking “Whatever this problem is, I’m not going to be hit by it.” Some are nodding as they read that sentence, while others already left the site before the jump. Perhaps somewhat ironically, a few of both parties are thinking “I edit so thoroughly, I’m sure to catch whatever this ‘death spiral’ is before it causes me any issues! I’ll show him!” And then they proceed to go back to editing their opening chapter, shaving it slowly towards perfection, unaware that they’re already caught, and that they will likely never finish what they set out to do.

Harsh? Well, some may think so, but I have seen this happen. Time and time again. It’s why today’s topic is so vital for writers, especially those of the new variety. The early editing trap is a mire from which many would-be writers never escape.

So what is it? What is this bog that traps so many stories like a fly in amber? Well, let’s set the stage with a story.

Picture a young writer. Young as to their time spent writing. Maybe a few years, maybe a few days. But they are setting on a new adventure: After a number of false starts before, or maybe even for the first time, they are sitting down to write their book.

Could be short, could be long. But they sit down at their keyboard and start plunking away at the keys. Bit by bit, chapter one takes shape (chapter one being the first bit of the story; it may not actually be a chapter). They finish it up, and then one of two things happens.

The first is that they move on. They finish that chapter and head right along to the next. They’ve escaped the trap for the time being. The other is that they finish the chapter, look back over it, and … Oh no. They spot a few errors. Some paragraphs that could be cleaned. Or maybe polished up. Better to get this chapter polished before starting the next one, they think, and so they begin to edit that chapter. They tweak, they tuck, they touch up. The jaws of the trap are beginning to close.

Maybe, maybe, they decide that it’s good enough for the moment and move on to the next chapter. They write, and they finish up that chapter, and then before they move on, they decide to polish up that chapter as well. But as they do, and they tweak and tuck, they start noticing areas of that first chapter again that still need to be tweaked. And so they go back and touch it up. Only once it’s done, they realize the second chapter now isn’t up to the first chapter, so they go tweak it as well.

Maybe at this point they move on to the third chapter, only to repeat the process once more. Only now there are three chapters to touch up, and by the time they finish the last they’re already worrying about the first once more.

The jaws of the trap have them. Sometimes—sometimes—this person will get to four or five chapters, but by then their progress has slowed to an abysmal crawl. If they’re making any forward progress at all with their limited writing time, it’s only after spending what may become several hours going over the previous chapters and “polishing” them, leaving them perhaps minutes to actually write something, at which point what they’ve written is far below their standards the other chapters have been polished to … and five years later, they may still be on that sixth chapter because their lack of progress has sucked the will to work on things out of them.

This is one of the more common ways the early editing trap—aka the Death Spiral—sinks its teeth into new writers. It’s one I’ve seen personally happen to new writers, and it drags the creation of a story to a standstill.

Let’s talk about that other writer, however, before we get too far. The one who “escaped the trap for the time being.” This writer didn’t go back and polish every single chapter in sequence of one another. They wrote the first chapter, decided it was good, and started on the second. Then that worked out pretty well too … save one little detail.

Nothing major, they just had a small bit of the story that they tweaked from the opening chapter. They’re only two chapters in, so going back and changing/rewriting that first chapter to line up with the new canon won’t take too long. They make the changes, spend their time, and then are off on chapter three.

Hmmm … only chapter three brings some more small changes to things. They’re good changes, mind, and help the story flow a bit better. But now chapter one and two are, again, slightly out of touch with the new material. And so … back they go to rewrite those chapters and update them to the new material.

And so it goes. Each time a new chapter is written, the whole of the story before it needs to see canon changes and updates. Sometimes, these changes don’t come until halfway through the story, and each time the writer, the jaws of the trap now firmly closed around their heel, restarts the whole book. Other times, they come with each chapter or even with each paragraph.

Worse, the more changes are made, the more changes they have to remember. Did the protagonist have a brother? Or is that a sister now? In what chapter did they talk about that? And wait, did their friend know that sibling, or not?

The jaws have closed, work forward slows to a pace so slow it may as well be a halt … and the years tick by.

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Now, a select few of those of you reading this might be saying something like “Yeah sure, how often does that really happen?” or even questioning if it does.

But I assure, it does happed. I’ve encountered numerous young writers over the years that have fallen into the trap, lamenting that they finally just gave up or that they haven’t made progress in years because “the editing” takes too much away from their writing time. It was talking with people both online and in real life in recent months that prompted me to revisit this topic once more. This is a real problem. And it strikes down the motivation and enthusiasm for a lot of young writers. I’ve spoken multiple times, over multiple years, with people whose foot was caught by the early editing trap and they lament that they just “couldn’t do it” and gave up.

It traps a lot of young writers.

So then … what can these young writers do? How does one avoid the trap?

Well, it’s easier said then done for some. But there are two ways that I’ve found to avoid the closing jaws.

The first is just to keep writing, and acknowledge that you’ll edit to perfection after the book/story is done.

I know that this sounds like madness to some young writers. How can they let those errors stand?

Easy. You ignore them. Move on, write the story, and edit when you’re not writing the story. Or, in other words, when the story is done. Complete it, then edit.

“But, but—” some of those who dive into the trap will say (and note that I again, have witnessed this response personally) “the story won’t be polished! It’ll be rough and ugly. How can I write that?”

Again, I say “Yes, easily, that’s what stories are.” A common element in being caught by this trap seems to be that the story must be perfect when the draft is finished and that “real writers” (no joke, someone did tell me this once) produced flawless drafts, with the editing of publishers just being a formality of some kind to check their work.

As. If.

No, drafts are messy things, full of shrapnel. Authors produce all kinds of errors, typos, misplaced words, and more in their opening drafts. There’s a reason most books go through a good dozen-plus drafts and will still publish with errors. Writing is messy work. Understand that, and push through the urge to go back and polish when the story isn’t even halfway done. Finish it, then start the editing process.

Now, the second way to avoid the trap, or rather, the way to avoid that other means by which the trap closes around a young author’s foot, the trap in which they keep making story changes and retooling the opening chapters to fit until they’ve created a massive mess, is a bit more complicated. But not too much.

Basically, rather than going back and retooling chapters (unless it’s say, something you can swap with a single find and replace), just drop a marker. Finish the chapter you’re on, note what you want to change, and then make a note in the text. Use the highlight function, make a note on a notepad, something that says “Hey, change this.”

Plenty of writers do it. Myself included. I’ve highlighted the openings and closings of a chapter before, with a note that says “Update this during edit to bring in line with ….” or the like. Then I go back to work on the next chapter of the book.

It works. In fact, it works great. You just accept that yeah, the earlier chapters aren’t in line anymore, but you’ll change them later. You won’t get bogged down making change after change each time you shift something, and you’ll actually keep progressing.

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This last bit is key. To both ways out of the trap. See, the trap works because it bogs a writer down. They become caught up with so much pointless work (and yes, I’ll call it that, because as noted it spirals down into endless repetition, hence the other name of Death Spiral) that their work forward slows to a crawl. And with that forward work down to little to nothing, much if not all of the drive that comes from seeing a story come to life fades, withers, and eventually dies.

At which point if the would-be writer doesn’t give up, they conclude that they did something wrong, that their story had too many weaknesses or they just weren’t good enough at writing, or whatever, and they step back and start a new story … only to almost always fall right into the same trap again.

And so the cycle repeats, sometimes for years. I’ve spoken with people at cons who have been trapped in this chorus for six or more years, across dozens of story attempts. And each time, the trap catches up with them.

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So yes, this trap catches and kills many young writers’ stories. It bogs them down until they give up.

But it doesn’t have to.

If you’re a writer who’s read this post and seen some uncomfortable similarity, consider how many projects you‘ve finished. If you’re constantly producing new work, then you’ve likely pulled yourself free of the trap.

But if you’re never finishing, constantly being bogged down by edits, changes, and updates … Maybe it’s time to change your approach. Maybe it’s time to stop making all those changes, edits, and revisions, no matter how much you want to, until the story draft is done.

Because if you spend your days writing, but never produce anything … You may have been caught by the trap. And you need to get out of it.

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One last note before we end. I’ve had this discussion before with young writers, and they’ve justified not changing by saying “Well, I’m getting better as a writer! That’s what all the changes are!”

And there’s a degree of truth to that. But let me give you a comparison: Who’s the better driver? The one who stops after the first turn of the race and takes the turn again, hundreds and hundreds of times, because the first turn wasn’t perfect? Or the driver who makes an imperfect second turn, and third, and fourth, and so on, taking lap after lap and finishing the race, then going to another track and finishing that race, until they one day return to that first turn and effortlessly cruise by?

Sure, they might take that first turn a tenth of a second slower than the other driver who has now “mastered” it (if they haven’t given up) but what about the second turn?

The other driver cruises on, while the perfectionist spends the next year at turn two. By the time they finish the track … the series is over, and the course has been retired.

Don’t be that driver. Take the turn, take the scrapes and the misplaced commas, which you’ll edit later, and drive the story to its conclusion.

Good luck. Now get writing!

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