The 7 Types of New Writer

#3 The Over-Editor

🔁 Quick Recap:

This series explores the most common (and most frustrating) writing habits new authors fall into.

So far, we’ve met:

The Eternal Outliner – who plans and plans and never writes
The Scene-Hopper – who writes only the fun bits and skips the glue

Today, we meet the one who writes… but never lets the story breathe.

✍️ Post #3: The Over-Editor

Subtitle: You’ve rewritten Chapter One so many times, it now opens with a dedication to itself.

🧠 Who They Are:

The Over-Editor is the hardest-working stuck writer you’ll ever meet.

They write constantly. They are always at the desk. They talk about their book all the time.

And yet… nothing is finished.

Because every time they write something, they immediately turn around and start sanding it down. And sanding. And sanding. Until the words bleed.

They never get to the end—because they never leave the beginning.

💪 Strengths:

Beautiful prose
Deep sensitivity to rhythm, tone, and nuance
Clear sense of how things should sound
High standards and pride in their craft

⚠️ Pitfalls:

Fear of moving forward with “bad” words
Belief that they must fix everything now
Lost in the illusion of progress (“editing IS writing… right?”)
Polishes surface problems while avoiding structural ones

🔓 Why You Stay Stuck:

You’re terrified of being judged.

If you keep rewriting Chapter One, no one can ever read Chapter Ten—and find out it’s not as perfect.

You’re clinging to control because the middle and end of the book are murky. But here’s the truth:

You cannot revise what you haven’t written.
You can’t perfect something that doesn’t exist.

✅ Next Steps for the Over-Editor:

Ban editing until draft is done. Seriously. Hide the red pen.
Make a deal with yourself: You’re allowed to edit one day per week only.
Use a placeholder system. Don’t fix it now—leave a note like:
[[tighten this later]] or [[cut if pacing too slow]]
Print your progress weekly. Not to edit—just to see how far you’ve come.

Are you an Over-Editor? What’s your longest-standing paragraph hostage?
👇 Tell us how many times you’ve rewritten Chapter One.

Writester