Macro and micro edits: a workflow.

🌍 Zoom out. 🔎Zoom in.

🌍 Macro. 🔎Micro.

Sometimes we can’t see the wood for the trees. If we are writing or editing, this can prove a real problem.

Maybe we’re so concerned with the overall message that we forget about the nuts and bolts – so rogue apostrophes may escape our notice, or we might have been typing so quickly that we didn’t notice a homophone error in our writing.

Or maybe we’re so focused on the trees that we can’t see the wood. In fact, we’re absolutely damn sure that we’re not going to let one dribble of sap, one unkempt twig, or one dropped acorn mess up our idea of the ideal tree. In this case, the nuts and bolts of the editing process can really hamper getting anywhere.

As with anything, it’s about finding that happy medium.

When it comes to the editing process, I start at the macro level, move to the micro level, and then move back out to macro. Zoom out, zoom in, and zoom back out again.

Wood ➡ trees ➡ tree ➡ trunk ➡ boughs ➡ branches ➡ twigs ➡ buds

And then back to the wood and trees.

🌳🌲🌳

Am I an editor or a tree surgeon?

Love an extended metaphor. 😅