Writing and the Revision Process

January 23, 2007 12:48 PM

I'm looking for anecdotes, or in-depth quotes, from writers about the process of rewriting/revision. Specifically, the difficulty or dedication some writers to the process. I'm aware of a few of the more popular maxims (i.e. Allow yourself to write a bad first draft, etc).
posted by Gnostic Novelist to Writing & Language (20 answers total)

Stephen King says, "Kill your darlings," which is excruciating but true. You've probably heard that one.

Along those lines, one of my college writing professors quoted something like: "When you think you've written something particularly fine. . . Cut it." Can't find who said it via Google, though.
posted by changeling at 1:04 PM on January 23, 2007

I think I read in "The Salmon of Doubt" by DNA, that P G Wodehouse was particularly obsessed with making each page of his work perfect.

I don't have an exact link right now, and I'm not sure if it is apocryphal, but he was said to stick each page of a story to the walls of the room. They would start at the bottom and he would revise them, moving them upwards until they were all at the ceiling. Only then would he submit it to be published.

Or something like that.
posted by JeremiahBritt at 1:06 PM on January 23, 2007

Stephen King says, "Kill your darlings,"

Faulkner said it, too :)
posted by The Straightener at 1:15 PM on January 23, 2007

The Unstrung Harp.

That is all.
posted by verstegan at 1:56 PM on January 23, 2007

Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird advises to write shitty first drafts.
posted by sugarfish at 2:05 PM on January 23, 2007

www.100words.net is where people write 100 words a day.  Not 99 words, not 107.  100.  Every day.

It's surprisingly difficult to write hundreds for an entire month.

A highlight of your day.  Poetry.  A deep sadness.  A large laugh.  A short letter to an old lover, or a new one.  Where your life is going.  Where you want it to go.  Maybe both.  Your wifes annoying laugh.  A particularly horrific popcorn fart.

I start here and end there, start long and end at 100.

I try to encapsulate honestly a piece of my day.

I've learned to cut.

posted by dancestoblue at 3:21 PM on January 23, 2007

posted by dancestoblue at 3:22 PM on January 23, 2007

I read an interview with a writer in which she said she would type out a first draft on her computer, print it, then delete the computer file.

She would then work from the paper and type everything back in, revising as she went. It always struck me as a very disciplined way to do it, not to mention the risk she was running of losing the only copy.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 3:27 PM on January 23, 2007

"Good is the enemy of great" is a quote I've often heard referring to first drafts.

Me, I use a Selectric without a correction ribbon for first drafts and then I edit as I retype into a word processor. It makes the delete button less of a foe.
posted by Gucky at 3:55 PM on January 23, 2007

Can't remember where I heard it, but the writing/revision quote that I always remember is :
'Inside every great big novel is a great little novel struggling to get out".
posted by BoscosMom at 4:24 PM on January 23, 2007

Spit out your first draft.  Words words words.  Let it go where it will.  Rock and roll.  It's a spring morning, you're on a big brown mare at a full gallop on a dirt trail, her heads up, she's loose as a goose and so are you, your hair is flying, your head is a roar and god, it smells so good, the flowers a blur. Move!  It's just like painting, every painting you see has ten paintings underneath it, places it was until it ended where it is now.  So paint, Start Fucking Painting NOW! grab tubes and tubes of colors and your knives and brushes and Move! don't be such a jerkoff, don't be such a coward, use primary colors, rich and brilliant blues and huge runs of golden aching joy.  Caffeine, if you please.

I've read (Jamison) that some bipolar writers write when manic and edit when depressed; in the mania the words flow in streams and also you can do no wrong, to your mind everything is golden, and when depressed you're more in a perfectionist state of mind, nothing is golden, you can see loops of nothing more clearly and cut it out of the work.

Cut.  Cut.  Cut.  Good writing is re-writing.  Cut to the bone, cut to the essence, then cut deeper.  Use a critical eye, your worst enemy is going to read this, your catty, shit-headed editor is going to read it, she's got a rough-looking head, she's got bad glasses and a sharp eye and sharp words and bad breath, not been laid in way too long - you're going to lay this in front of her.  Take a cold shower, come out with a hatchet, cut out dead ends, extraneous words, cut all the crap from the initial write.  Hack into it.   Now cut more, this is your painting, you may be dead tomorrow, this is your message to the future, to those coming behind, this is your legacy, this is your soul on the page.

What remains after all of that is usable.  Maybe.

posted by dancestoblue at 4:41 PM on January 23, 2007

One of my writing instructors gave me this tip: When you know you're on to something good, when you have a clear picture of where your piece is going, stop. Maybe even mid-sentance. Stop. As long as your direction is clear in your mind, when you pick the piece back up the next day or whenever, you'll have something to start with. So instead of writing until you exhaust your stream of thought and hit the "writer's block" step away. This will allow your mind to work from something you haven't actually written yet, rather than pick up a piece that is stuck.

I hope that makes sense. :)
posted by youngergirl44 at 6:24 PM on January 23, 2007

Oh, and read your piece out loud. This will help you pick up parts that don't sound quite right. Or better yet, have someone read it to you.
posted by youngergirl44 at 6:25 PM on January 23, 2007

Jack Kerouac, allegedly, bragged that he'd written On The Road while juiced on speed, in one sitting, straight through, with no revisions.

Truman Capote (again allegedly) commented, "That's not writing, that's typing."
posted by Clay201 at 10:54 PM on January 23, 2007

Stephen King says, "Kill your darlings,"

Faulkner said it, too :)

Actually, the origin of the quote is Arthur Quiller-Couch, from On the Art of Writing, 1916. Here's the full quote:

"if you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’"

This is from Elie Wiesel:
“Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.”
posted by bokinney at 7:32 AM on January 24, 2007

What you want is The Writers Chapbook, which is flat-out the best book of writers talking about the process of writing ever published. It's a compilation of excerpts from interviews from the Paris Review with some of the twentieth century's greatest writers, and is both analytical and inspirational.
posted by Hogshead at 1:58 PM on January 24, 2007

Don't get it right: get it written.

Essentially what sugarfish says. Just get some shit down and work from there.
posted by lalochezia at 2:36 PM on January 24, 2007

Creative Writing 101, as explained by Kurt Vonnegut. Doesn't differentiate between drafts, but does make for a nice little postdraft checklist.
posted by gnomeloaf at 11:13 AM on January 25, 2007

I always liked "Write the story, take out all the good lines, and see if it still works" - Hemingway
posted by unless I'm very much mistaken at 8:32 AM on January 26, 2007

"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public."

-sir winston churchill
posted by churl at 7:05 AM on August 16, 2007