Letter Mark Editing – Writing and Editing Advice by Greg Luti
Updated: 6 days ago
A writing and editing advice post about a cleaner way to revise on paper. In “Letter Mark Editing,” Greg Luti shows how marking additions at the end of a draft keeps the original text intact while still letting you improve the piece.
The Problem with Editing on Paper
Writers love to write up a story and put it down on paper, and then they have to edit it. They have to cross out a few things, then they have to add a few new lines, and by the fifth time of editing, the entire paper is not even readable, but the writer knows there are more edits to be done. What started as a way of helping the story turned into a major headache.
We all know this feeling, and I have come up with a way to efficiently write on paper while also editing the piece.
Why I Started Using Letter Marks
The reason I came up with this method is from an experience I had with writing a book. It was years ago, and I kid you not, I was writing every page again with the edits, and it got to the point where I was just frustrated with the entire process. I was not getting as much progress as I wanted because I was not able to actually edit it as much as I could. I couldn't read the pages, so I had to spend nights typing up what I'd already edited, which was just a pain. It was not working. I gave up on the book, and in that failure, I decided to annotate the edits rather than just edit them as I normally would.
The first poem I remember doing this with was one from my poetry book, Collected Poems, called "The Year 1318," which I wrote during my lunch break, and I could do so because of this method.
For this example, I am using my poem, What Happened, since I wrote that piece on paper first using this method. (I don't write all my pieces on paper; some are put on the laptop right away)
The Two Steps
There are two basic steps to completing the piece on paper.
First draft
Editing it with letters
The first step is simple: the first draft. I didn't really have any outline or anything for this piece, so this is what I had for the first draft.
First Draft Example
What Happened?
They'll ask what happened.
What changed?
Why is it not like how it was? Sure, there are many who will give opinions.
The people moved on. What was new is now old, and the audience wished for something new.
The quality dipped. What was great is not even good.
Or perhaps it was something else. No matter the answer, things change after the question is posed.
Nobody talks about it like they used to.
It is a question workers bring up at an office party before they get back to invoices.
Family members ask the question in the middle of dinner, before grandpa's rants and the aunt's joke no one gets.
The question is posed.
The room finds an answer and then moves on.
No one fights for it.
No one is upset about it.
It just is.
Accepted as the sky is blue or you need air to breathe. The world keeps going, and in that movement they leave things behind.
At that point, what is there to do?
Something died, something real and noticeable, and yet no one mourned for it.
A thing rose, changed lives, but then those whose lives were changed left that thing.
Until that thing, that which the world loved at one point, is gone. What happened? They'll ask.
And once that happens, it is already too late.
Now that was the first draft, or what I wrote the first time I was putting down stuff. Obviously there were a lot of areas to grow with and areas that needed improvement, which is where the second step comes in.
Marking Edits with Letters
The next step is to add new lines to the work and mark them in the piece.
Here are the two lines I had for the first edit.
What is it not like how it was? A.
Sure, there are many who will give opinions.
I am now adding words in between those two lines.
I don't put them between the lines, though; I put them at the end of the piece, marked A.
"Hey buddy," the salesman asks charmingly. "See this. I got this for you."
"Wait, why do I need that?" you ask.
"Why don't you need it?" the salesman winks.
Now I am done with this edited part, and I go back to the line I left off on.
Sure, there are many who will give opinions.
I read on until I find another part that needs editing.
Why This Method Works
By using this method, I am not only keeping the editing clean but also able to focus on one area of the piece and get the most out of those words.
The process repeats itself until I am satisfied with the result. I use new letters for each new edit. I am not adding words in the middle of the piece, but at the end. I only add the letter marks so I know where the added words go.
With this structure, you can slowly build a piece in a way that is helpful for editing, rather than having the words go all over the place.
I have adopted this as my go-to editing technique for physically writing a piece.
A Few Things to Keep in Mind
Here are a few notes to remember:
Conversion will alter things - Converting the line structure to the Word document is a bit tricky. I know I sometimes struggled with it, since when I write in a notebook I have a sentence per line, with some space. But when I put the poem on the computer, that separation looks a bit different. Keep an eye on that change.
Not really done - If you are like me, you will probably add more to the piece once you add it to the computer, which is actually what I did do for this one. What you put on the paper is not the finished product
Note your handwriting - There are times when I read through what I wrote and swear it takes me a few reads to know what the line was actually about.
Extra notes to remind yourself – If you have something you want to remember the next time you work on this piece, it would be smart to write a few notes for yourself so you can pick up right where you left off.
Give It a Try
Next time you are writing up a piece, don't think you are in trouble if you have to edit it a few times; you can use this approach to make the whole thing a bit easier. I hope this helps.
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