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Q&A How do I gain sufficient emotional distance from my work to edit it?

Beyond time and cleansing your brain-palate, which others have noted here, I found that being a little "off" helps me, oddly enough. A little sleepy (like foregoing my morning coffee), a little hyp...

posted 7y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:42Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26364
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:01:06Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26364
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T06:01:06Z (over 4 years ago)
Beyond _time_ and _cleansing your brain-palate,_ which others have noted here, I found that being a little "off" helps me, oddly enough. A little sleepy (like foregoing my morning coffee), a little hyper (several extra cups of coffee), working in somebody else's house, working on somebody else's machine. Change something about your usual environment.

What you essentially want is not to be re-writing the story in your head as you go along reading it. You want to read it with an editor's or outsider's eye. Time and distraction accomplish a lot of this, but so can altering your mental state slightly. Obviously you don't want to be impaired, because that prevents you from accomplishing anything, but "a jump to the left" is what you're aiming for.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-01-28T22:38:48Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 6