Writing

To Write Better Than AI, You Need a Comb and a Little Voice

Consider this another installment in my occasional free writing course

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If you’ve ever had very long hair, or have cared for the long hair of a child, you know getting all the tangles out takes many passes.

You might first try quickly running the comb through the hair, but you stop as you find a snarl that you need to zero in on.

You try running the comb from crown to ends again but you find that particular tangle is stubborn, so you focus on it again. But finally, you can run the comb all the way through that section of hair. Satisfied, you move to the next section.

I always have the image of a comb going through hair as I edit.

Yes, every time.

I am always metaphorically combing the copy, smoothing it from top to bottom.

The initial attempt to comb the entire head of hair shows you where the problem areas are. You fix the snarls, and then you try to comb through everything again.

You may find smaller snags you didn’t notice at first because you were focused on the larger tangles.