Every day I spend about ten minutes touching up my face.

Image via yenhoon on SXC

First concealer, then blusher, eyeshadow and eyeliner, with a final buffing of finishing powder to pull everything together.

Despite my boyfriend thinking the entire exercise is unnecessary, I would rather show the world the most polished version of my face possible.

And it was on one of these mornings when I realised that make up isn’t all that different from editing.

Unless you’re into masochism webfiction, you WANT the world to see the most polished version possible of your story.

Even with webfiction, the urge to go back and fix things is there.

First you need foundation and concealer to smooth out the edges of your story and correct any plot holes. If the story’s basis is uneven, there’s no point working on anything else.

Then you need blusher, to add colour and breathe life into your story, and to make your characters have shape and definition.

Then the eyeshadow and eyeliner, the flair and drama and emotion. The best bits, shown off to their best.

Finally, the finishing powder. Blend your edits together, remove irksome typos, make the finished story seamless.

And that, my dears, is how you edit with make up.