The article The Makers Eye, by Donald M. Murray, has some informative writing advise in it, but I am skeptical of many of the claims that Murray makes. I feel that the article isn’t great writing, so why should I trust his advise on writing? Murray claims in his article that most good writers “usually feel that they don’t start the real writing until after the first draft is done.” I don’t think that his claim is true; I think that the first draft is the biggest milestone in writing. Of course editing is important, but the better the first draft is, the less time is needed to be spent editing. I will take some of Murray’s writing advice, but some of it I feel is rubbish.
Murray is very hypocritical throughout his article. His article says that when editing, one should be making sure that the writing is about the subject, not the writer, but then Murray talks about himself for many paragraphs. He also makes it seem that writers should spend more time editing than writing their first draft. Murray’s article isn’t any more interesting or in any way better than most articles written by amateurs, so obviously he doesn’t know how much time he needs to spend writing compared to editing. Murray needs improve his editing skills by just deleting the details that don’t matter. The Maker’s Eye is a boring and overly detailed article.
There is some very helpful editing advise in Murray’s article, but I feel that much of it will not work for me. Not all writers write the same; not all good writers spend more time editing that writing, or stay on subject. I usually spend more time writing my first draft than I do editing, and I will continue to do so despite Murray’s advise. Something that Murray needs to understand is that writing is more of an art than it is a science. Because writing is an art, some of Murray’s advice that doesn’t work for me, may work for someone else.