I heard it said that Benjamin Franklin practiced writing by reading a segment from a book he liked, then trying to write it as he imagined it, before comparing it to the original to see how they compared in style and essence. I was thinking about it, and wondered if that might be a good practice for editing as well.

If you have a friend to work with, having them rewrite one of your scenes might give you the fresh perspective you need to improve it in a way you couldn't see before. It captures the way a reader sees it, so if you want to let them take creative license on the description, it could also help you to explain the locations as you see them so that the reader can see the same.

Rin. You are brilliant.

This is an absolutely brilliant idea. I'll have to try this.

Good idea, Riniel. I might try this sometime.

I... like this idea. I really like this idea.

The only problem I can foresee is if you ask someone to do it whose writing you really like, because then you might like their version so well that you want to use it and it would get in the way of your personal creativity.

So you'd have to be careful.

But I like this idea. 0.0

This is a good idea. I never thought of this before. I've let people into my sandbox before (I had a friend write an epilogue to a book of mine she thought ended terribly, and another friend offered to write a fight scene I was struggling with.) It's a strange and...almost the only word to use here is intimate...experience. It's not like when someone writes fanfiction or when you co-author something. It takes a lot of courage and trust to do something like this.

Of course maybe that's the control freak in me freaking out...

I just discovered this again, and I'm totally going to assign this to my students sometime.