The difference between writing, editing and publishing

It wasn’t so long ago when those were all separate functions.

You wrote something, sent it around and if you were fortunate enough to be accepted, your work was edited and then published.

That changed with social media.

The roles blurred and in many cases if you’re a blogger or content producer, you find yourself doing all three functions at once. Sometimes not very well.

While there’s certainly a lot of overlap, each job demands specific talents and expertise. Writing requires dreaming/an imagination, editing is a bit like solving a puzzle and publishing demands attention to detail.

Here’s a simple way to look at the differences:

Creation = writing
You come up with the idea, vision or story and bring it to life.

Re-creation = editing
You take the story and fine tune it, play around with the words, images and overall order. You also figure out how to adapt it to new formats (formerly serial rights, now reuse).

Pro-creation = publishing
You make the story public by reproducing it across various media. And by being a publisher, you’re also adding a layer of professionalism to the work, the pro in pro-create.

Many people can do one or two of these functions well. For instance, I think I’m pretty good at writing and editing, but my publishing skills could probably use a boost. Other people are natural editors/publishers. Yet these days, being a content producer often requires some proficiency in all three.

And if you’re not?
That’s where co-creation comes in. Collaborating with people whose strengths complement yours in order to add a fresh perspective and enhance the quality of your story.

How do you approach content creation? Where do you your creative strengths lie?

About Martin Waxman

I'm a Toronto digital, social media and communications strategist, founder of 3 PR agencies, blogger at myPALETTE, Inside PR co-host, @martinwaxman on Twitter, digital and social media strategy instructor at University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, and former fiction writer, comedy MC & Winnipegger.

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maxchristianhansen

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I'd like to think I'm capable of all three, but that's probably wishful thinking. Even for the capable, it's tough to do them all in a tight time-frame. It's what makes blogging so hard. Some of the best editors I know say it's hard to edit something they've just written. You know exactly what you meant, and so when you re-read, the only thing you can see in the words is that meaning. Only the fresh eye can see the ambiguities, the garden-path sentences, even the simple typos.

martinwaxman moderator

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@maxchristianhansen Thanks Max. I think based on what interestes, we unconsciously choose which one or two of the three to focus on and then have to work doubly hard on the other(s) to make sure they approach the quality we put into the other two. As I said, I know publisher-me could benefit from an extra set of eyes.

TorontoLouise

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Great post about an issue that affects all of us in the "writing' racket. Content creation is not an issue for me but I often get paralyzed by the consequences. If I published all of the blog posts and articles and even tweets I thought of, I'd be more controversial and disruptive than I am prepared to be. Even when my opinions are measured well-thought-out and even backed up by fact, if they go against the conventional wisdom of the communications industry in this city, I chicken out. I'm working on that.