Full disclosure: this is a repeat of a comment I posted last year about multiple revisions and reductions, when we were on this same topic. I am re-posting now because there a lot of new people here so maybe it will be useful to some other folks. (plus, you know, why not get a little more mileage out of the thing?)
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I wrote an essay for a journal years ago. Might have been about 2,000 words. It was
well received and I thought it was pretty good. Then it got more attention and another
journal called, wanting to publish it in their special back page feature position. It was an honor. It was also limited to 1,000 words. I had to cut my piece in half. I bled. It got tighter. My wife read it and thought it was much better. She couldn't even remember the parts I cut. Then I heard from the Utne Reader, who wanted to promote it with a brief version. They needed it to be 500 words max. I cut it in half again. I bled more. The story started to bleed. I think I passed the point of coherence and it turned into a synopsis. But they published that and I enjoyed the continued publicity. Then I heard from the Pearson Testing Service. They wanted to license it for an essay question on their standardized tests. I thought it was joke. I asked my daughter in law who is an educator. She said, on the contrary, it was an honor, go for it. So I asked how much they wanted. They said 300 words....and...I cut it again. So the synopsis became an excerpt. I learned a tremendous amount about how much fat can be cut and I learned how much of my own absolutely fabulous words were simply expendable, without losing the point. I also learned how it can go too far, lose the overall grace but still communicate the main points, enough for a student, somewhere, to react to it and bring forth their own ideas, and start the cycle over for themselves. Quite the set of lessons about writing and life.
I think a lot of great stuff has been said already. My only tip (and by that I mean it’s what I do, but it might be useful to others) is during early drafts I try not to delete old alternative versions of things that I’m changing in each version. Or put a line through, so that it’s still visible, or sometimes put the old version in square brackets, so I can see it and reconsider the new and old alternatives on subsequent read throughs. Yes, sometimes it is disfigured beyond recognition; but generally something in that old version in brackets, or whatever, gives a hint of how to bring it back.
It reminds me of primary school. We were discouraged from erasers for writing, but to try and put a neat line through things. Who knew it would eventually make sense?!
StoryFinal.doc. StoryFinalFinal.doc. StoryFinalFinalTwo.doc. StoryNewFinal.doc. StoryNewFinalFinal.doc. StoryNewFinalFinal2.doc. NewFolderNewStoryFinal.doc. NewFolder2NewStoryFinal.doc. NewEditsStoryFinal.doc. NewEdits2StoryFinal.doc and so on for the next ten years.....
For a few years now I’ve saved every draft with a date prefix (YYMMDD—eg today’s are 240216). When I start work for the day I duplicate my draft and change the date. It means I can track back if I need—I’m never worried about what’s lost. And it takes the pressure off feeling this one needs to be the “real” draft
Ha ha ha, Mary - it’s like you’ve bugged my document cloud…
But, seriously, do have this issue because whilst I do love Scrivener for poems, I don’t like the aesthetics of it for drafting actual prose. I tend use other programs, and then cut and paste versions into Scrivener (when I remember), so the Pages /PDF file names are all just like this. I think of all my creative practice, saving tweaked versions, is a nightmare. On Sunday I went back to a short story that needs finishing, and had to search through countless paper edits and different files to try and work out the latest version. I’m still not convinced the one I’ve plumped for is the most recent - it’s a nightmare!!
In Scrivener you can use the Snapshot to keep loads of versions in the same place: in Inspector, click on the Camera icon and then on +. With a click the current copy is saved with its date and you can vandalize your text. Anytime you can go to one of the listed previous svreenshots and retrieve an older version.
Yes, that’s about the only function I use it for. My only issue is that sometimes I’m so eager to edit, I start changing it before I’ve taken the snapshot!
The side-by-side split screen comparison is also another good way to use the snapshot function.
Now I tend to think of my future archivist self and try to give dates, but even then there can be very little difference between 2 edits then the next is a big jump with lots of stuff edited out. Sometimes I add info in the filename about where I sent it.
I get all confused about which draft is which and where that other one went with that passage I loved which is gone now so I have to do a global search of a line from the passage, and twenty revisions show up, all a little different, and so on...
Yes, Ian, and I guess in that context it gives you a trail, where if you err in your final calculation you can trace your steps and see exactly where you went wrong.
the only thing I remember from kindergarten is that my mother and the teacher (Mrs. Shapiro) had the same umbrella. That really made an impact. Oh, one other thing: all the other kids brought in better snacks than I did.
Hah! I think the saying is supposed to be about kindness, consideration of others, sharing, the power of storytelling...that sort of thing. But yes, never underestimate the power of matching umbrellas. Or snacks.
Wow, Kurt, never heard this - but love it! It’s getting truer and truer as I get older - and to other things than writing too, may I say. :) But yes, the simple things, the simple things…
Back in the olden days when I captained a Smith-Corona I remember cutting pages apart, taping new parts in, and editing only in soft pencil. I can still remember the sound, the crackle of all that tape and liquid paper.
In the software biz, this is called Version Control. I use Track Changes and name the files with different revisions MyStory_1.2 etc. Major revisions (say, after getting feedback from my writing group) warrant a change in the first number. I have a line at the top of the file, before the title, with the day of week, date, revision number, and word count (since in my case, my stories run long and I’m often trying to cut it)
Hello, fellow "Patti with an i"! Thanks for this—I'm not the most organized person (my ex-husband used to refer to my seemingly endless stacks of papers as "Patti's Piles"—sounds painful) and any help in keeping things in some kind of order is appreciated!
Well sometimes the changes pile up and I’ll do an “accept all” while continuing to use Track Changes going forward. I name the file something like MyStory1.5_no_chg_bars.
If you’re using MS-Word you can also compare two versions, whether between rev1.5 and rev1.6 or Rev1.0 and Rev5.3 etc. You can also compare the draft you sent an editor and the draft she sent back.
Great if you can remember them all! I’ve forgotten my own name by lunch, so try to keep as much as I can on the page, for as long as possible, until it hampers flow or readability, then I reluctantly erase stuff on the page; but cut and paste into Scrivener where old drafts are sequenced and easily accessible. But definitely keeping cuts is mega important, as you say, and sometimes they’re so big they need a new place to live or wait to be useful again.
"...Forgotten my own name by lunch...." Loved that! I can totally relate. I think my filing systems are brilliant, until I go back to find something. Then I'm like, "What was I thinking? This is useless. I have to open and read every one of these." Though I will say that search technology has saved me more than once. I can search a specific text string inside a folder full of confusing files and it will 'read' inside each of those files and show me just the matching ones in a list. And in like 5 seconds. Kind of a miracle.
Yes, I have documents and folders saved that have titles like "Scenes for later in MS" or "Cuts Saved for Later." Sometimes I think a passage I cut that wasn't working in a story—but I love the passage—might, with revision, work in a different story. I'm dancing around with an idea about linked stories, and this can work particularly well for that kind of collection.
Hi Camilla, I don’t know much about Google docs except as a file sharing system. But it sounds really useful in a way which might be similar or different to what I’m suggesting here.
The idea of keeping cuts on the page for a while is that story (as Mary suggests), character, tone (e.g. irony) but more importantly for me, the music (I.e. poetic resonance, syntactic flow and rhythm) is still developing in its early stages, and can have an effect on the beauty of the piece - and hence a) my motivation to finish it b) my ability to make good choices for those later more final drafts. Every word or phrase I’ve written is a little piece of energy/motivation I might not get back - so I try to keep it as useful in the process for as long as I can!
All i would add to George's great advice is this: To ask yourself "what is the purpose of my revision?" And to ask yourself that same question with each draft. When you've written a first draft, the purpose of your revision will (most likely) be to find out what your story actually is. Because you have allowed yourself the freedom to put words on paper, now is the time to look into all of what came up from your subconscious and your conscious minds and see what it is you are telling yourself! It's in there--you just have to find it. You might want to use some tools to parse out the story--a set of questions that will help you see what you have done. And then, once you see a bit more clearly, you revise to story. You keep "revising to story" until the story is there. Along the way, you will find that there may be just one way to tell this particular story. And so, you will need to revise, keeping what makes this story this story, and getting rid of what makes this story something other than what it is. Again, you may want a set of tools/questions to ask yourself in order to do this. I'd call this more of a style revision, although a style revision may very well come about at the same time as your story revision. It all depends on you and what kind of storyteller you are. In the end, when you read your story, you should be able to tell if you have somehow deleted the magic. In that case, revise for magic! I don't know if any of this makes sense to you. My main point is to always first revise for story, if possible. You may have to do that in some backward manner, depending on your personal makeup. But, in the end, you want to have produced a unfied whole with everything leading to your final product of a story. So you keep revising until you get there, and then you look back and make sure you haven't ruined it. Good luck! I hope this is helpful.
last night at a party a friend asked, how do you make up a story? I like this idea of 'revising to story.' Like the story exists, somewhere already made and our job is to bow to this and find it.
Kinda like that dream, fully formed and glorious in its completion, that never the less scurries away over the horizon of our waking taunting us to find it again.
I like how you put this! The next time I consider killing one of my darlings, I’ll ask myself whether I’m able to see the forest [story]for the trees [darlings].
I struggle with this a lot. Often I'll identify what I believe is a flaw in a story, but find that the flaw is built out of a bunch of things I like. I could eliminate the flaw, but at what cost? I also recognize that no piece of writing is perfect, so there will be flaws no matter what I do, but is this flaw one of the good ones, or not? I like things a little malformed, but I also like things smooth and elegant. Sometimes I will accuse myself of calling a story done out of simple exhaustion, or laziness, or a lack of the proper work ethic. Is the story "good enough," or am I banishing it to mediocrity by even entertaining the question?
Yes it is. One thing I find that helps with shorter things like stories or scene is reading aloud. Inadequacies tend to show up, and the overall impression and feel of the work is more apparent I.e. is it a finished feeling? But I’m not gonna lie I tend to save this for final tweak drafts, and often don’t do it at all. Especially with my novel - which I’ve drafted too many times to want to hear it aloud! ;) So, theoretically good advice - how consistently doable it is…
Agreed Merrie! Reading out loud does so much. For me it especially reminds me that the words sound different out of my head than inside it. Sometimes so much so that I change the words.
Yes…just agreeing. I often find reading aloud what I’m writing valuable. It’s revealing, and sometimes alarming, what a different perspective hearing one’s words spoken brings to how those same words sound in one’s inner ear.
Yes, one can almost squirm a little when you hear what you thought was so good read aloud! Perhaps that’s why I avoid it sometimes - possibly to the detriment of the piece!
I love reading aloud but find that I sometimes give more feeling to my words when I read them aloud-so things can get baked into the text that I maybe should have taken out earlier...
Hi David. If you're calling a story done because you're exhausted, there's always the option of putting the story aside for a while--even several months--and then looking at it again when you're no longer so exhausted by it. I've put stories aside for so long that sometimes I can't even remember having written them. Then I have completely fresh eyes and energy to do what may need to be done.
My dear friend, the poet Michael Burkard, tells the story of finding a student mss in a drawer, taking it out, reading it, thinking "This is pretty good," and then....realizing he'd written it, MANY years before, and given up on it. Then he sent it out and it was accepted right away. This was "Pennsylvania Collection Agency," I believe.
Definitely done that before. I love finding old stories I can't remember having written... sometimes they are beyond salvageable but can still teach me a lot about myself and my writing. Often I use them to learn from mistakes.
Yes, that is a great suggestion, and I should probably check my impatience and do that more. But I also have stories I've come back to after months or years, stories I think have at least something worth saving, and find myself in the same pickle. I may just need to follow George's advice in those cases and just cut it until I ruin it, and maybe that can get me out the rut.
There are a lot of things you can try. One would be to read one of those stories to yourself, then put it away completely. Now: rewrite that story. All over again. Then compare the two. Or do as George says, and cut it in half. I once did this to a story of mine that I liked. But as an exercise, I cut the words in half. It was a much better story! Surprise! Or, take those parts "worth saving" and toss the rest. See why you feel those particular parts are "worth saving." What is about them that you like? Can you write outward from them and into a story. Lastly, some stories may not ever work. They are necessary to our development as writers. We need to be grateful for them. But sometimes, you've got to put them in the Dead File and just be done with them.
Guidelines, workflow, walking around with my characters, having an eye for places in my drafts that need to be unpacked, that are too abstract/need to be more sensory, or "on the body". See the places that ramble off of the "fall line" – this is a skier/snowboarder term that refers to being on the "sweet spot" as we fly downhill, that place of greatest momentum while maintaining balance with all the elements, the ice patches, the moguls, the opportunities to "take air", that is, go air born, etc. For me, having lived in the Tahoe Sierras for a few decades (and I will return home again!), the downhill snow sport analogy really speaks to my need for making revisions a process of enhancing freshness. There is a sweet spot in how I experience revisions. And when you're in it, you know it.
Guidelines for me include – finding the awkward parts of drafts written when I'm still developing a primary character. In my crappy drafts, I let myself get to know my characters by "quick! Tell everything that's important about this person who keeps piping up in my head, or that character who keeps showing up in strange places in the story, etc."
Reading out loud the drafts that are up next on the docket, to hear how much revision is going to be needed. I always shake out my drafts with this first. It's also a good way to hear my characters' voices, to know that I have enough distinction with them, that they aren't melding into each other, or even needing to possibly be dropped because the character idea isn't distinct enough from the other characters who are already doing the heavy lifting in the story.
And of course, refining a draft always benefits from line by line edits. Looking for the clunks, places where I'm popped out of the narrative dream, usually by too much "telling" about something through abstractions, using language that fails to evoke an image/along with other senses as much as possible. And again, always being aware of the "fall line", the path of the story that keeps interest moving forward.
Workflow, for me, works like this–
AM work– grab the next dozen or so pages that have been stashed in the drafts drawer. Read out loud the first piece included in the chosen draft sheets. Note the bumps and filter for the other concepts mentioned above. Repeat with each of the next pieces.
Afternoons– walk around, do something physical outside, and converse with a particular character from the work at hand. Come up with questions for them–i.e. "Why do you dream of travel, but stay in your career that keeps you staying put?" "What would inspire you to stop your wandering heart, and just admit that you love and want more from X?" "What drives you to risk your career, to do something so outside of the scientific world, but you don't care? And you've formed a secret cadre of breakaway scientists who meet regularly, late at night, on campus?"
Chatty stuff like that really helps me get to know my characters, to find their quirks, fears, and ambitions. And these internal conversations really contribute to the freshness factor for me.
Evenings–Slam out new draft in a public place, like a cafe, while having dinner, tea, etc. Any place with enough activity to distract/muzzle the overcritical inner editor, and simply let the fingers fly unfettered by anything, pouring it out with no other objective than capturing the story ideas that come through.
Before bed, print out the evening draft double spaced, and place it in the drawer that holds drafts that won't be touched before at least a week has gone by.
Next morning– Review revisions that call to me, read out loud, make notes, on and on...
I like to take every story I think might be close to being done and cut by a certain percentage, like 15 percent, or by a certain amount of words, forcing me to cut unnecessary words, lines, phrases, redundancies, etc. Almost always I don't miss what I cut. If I do find myself missing a line or phrase, I put it back in. But then I go back and see if there is anything else I can cut to make up for putting those words back. It's like a game, or like sculpting.
I am often asking myself when a story is dead? When is it worth revising? What if I am working on stories that are, as you say, "necessary" for my development but only just that-- a stepping stone, etc. ?
Yes, yes, yes! If I take that out, then I have to go back and edit out everything that pointed to it, or referred to it, and how about the future scenes that refer back to it and, and, and...
Yes. I agree. I guess, and mean guess deliberately rather than in, you know, vernacular speak, one way through this is to try and make the flaw that might need to be there (and I really believe one knows whether it does, ie as you say one of the good ones) as good as it can be, leave it there, and revisit it in the light of what one does next with the story.
David thanks for this my biggest issue is that I never think it is ''ood enough’’. BUT THE PROBLEM IS WHAT IS GOOD ENOUGH. Maybe someone has the answer.
"Always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret." From the introduction to "The Four Agreements" By Don Miguel Ruiz. A Toltec wisdom book.
The Four Agreements resonated with me when it first came out and I read it, because I had already been practicing them! They gave voice to practice, and they've served me well my entire life. I actually think "making assumptions" is more insidious and far more damaging than lying. It's very difficult not to make them though, but it's worth it to try not to.
Yes, writing is hard work, but I love it. I remind myself that John Grisham said writing is the hardest job he'd ever had, and he had been a lawyer and state legislator. I'd rather write.
I read my work out loud several times to get the rhythm, and then as I read it out loud, I hear where my voice stalls, where a word stumbles, or how a sentence doesn’t flow, sometimes, the word does taste right. It’s clunky, or it doesn’t sound the way people speak or think. Other people record their readings and then listen to the recording to find where they lose the beat. For me, reading out loud works best. It's like my mind is self-correcting my work as I read it out loud.
I read my work out loud too. I learned this from when I used to write radio theater, often on a deadline with not enough time for revision, and when the voice actors would stumble over the words, then I knew I'd written something way too clunky.
I’ve also asked myself the same questions about revision. Those first drafts seemed to have been written so magically I didn’t want to change anything. It was as if whatever I’d written was somehow sacred. But over time I realized that no matter how magical the story seemed to me, if a reader didn’t experience the magic too, I needed to figure out how to convey the magical quality of the story through revision. For example, segments I wrote in one character’s voice could be fit into another character’s voice, if it’s essential information, or something one character sees in an early draft can appear to another character in a later draft. Sometimes when I’m writing, its as if I were seeing a movie, and I’m just transcribing the action. There have been occasions when something happens that I don’t understand, but I keep it in the draft. Not too long ago, I had insight into what something I’d “seen” meant and I conveyed the meaning by developing it further. Another time, I knew what an object in the story was, but had to go back into the story and add a reason for the appearance of that object. In these cases, I’d say the first drafts offer clues, and subsequent drafts further develop the clues, or lead me and my characters to take another path. I also know the feeling that sometimes the supposed facts in a story don’t quite match up, but if they’re unimportant I just say to myself, well the character who thinks that is mistaken, and my narrator is unreliable anyway, so it’s no big deal. As for over-working drafts, I know I’ve done that too. I couldn’t stop rereading the finished text and kept adding words here and there. I later went back and cleaned up those over-worked sentences and removed the unnecessary words. It's easy to go off on some weird tangent and then I say to myself, what was I thinking? And I have to clean up the mess I made.
I love this. I have a similar experience, especially with dialogue. My characters start talking, and I record what they're saying. Many folks say dialogue is what they struggle with most, but I love it. I did a lot of theater in my twenties and thirties, so that might be why I hear dialogue so clearly. After the first draft, I have to go back and cut out stuff that's redundant or unneeded, but it's usually pretty tight upon the first draft.
I've also had that experience that you describe as something happening that you don't understand. I believe that's the subconscious at work on the page. It's "being in flow." I've had characters that I wasn't expecting just walk into a room. Not all of those surprises from the subconscious work, but many of them do, and it's kind of magical.
It's wonderful to be surprised. I like your experience of having a character just walk in and join the conversation. Inspiration takes many forms, and yes, some people are more inclined to hearing and others to seeing the scenes play out. My muse seems to direct the story and when the story is really inhabiting me, even when I’m revising, I’ll know I need to do something a bit differently and I’ll change it accordingly. It’s also the knowing. I’ll simply know something about a character or a scene. The creative process definitely calls for deep listening and trust. Trust in the voices and inspirations. I also agree with the comment that ideas sometimes need expression. I can imagine those ideas somehow floating around in the air and taking possession of my fingers as I tap, tap, tap the keyboard. The art of storytelling is like none other. And this is why people have been telling stories since we became homo sapiens, or maybe even earlier in our seemingly timeless lineage. We walk in the footprints of our ancestors.
My stories play like movies in my head too :) Or I get a narratio "off screen" from a character whose voice is so strong, it's all that I can do to type fast enough to catch all that.
I'm think my head is tuned to narration from audio input as much as visual. Think it might've started in my youth, doing animation for many years.
I know it's kind of a weird idea for some writers. I once read a detective/police procedure genre writer who flat out said that writers who "hear" their character's voices are surely just "full of sh..!
Well, it takes all kinds. And now that I mentioned it to you, if you do start hearing voices, maybe just be careful about who you tell about it ;-)
No, not a metaphor. Once when I had just begun to write I talked with a woman who had been writing for a while and she said, she saw the action like a movie and I thought, I'd like to see movies too. And then I did. It doesn't always happen, but sometimes it's like seeing, not with the vividness of a dream, but more like imagining an image. I don't know how else to explain it. Or, sometimes when you are falling asleep you may have hypnagogic images. But I have trained myself to just open to the imagination, and write, and it just speaks to me. That's the first draft. Then I have to go into another state of mind when I work on the sentences, cut and paste, etc. etc. etc.
I had a friend who wrote her memoir and when I read it, I thought it sounded very stiff. She told me she wrote each sentence with perfect grammar and had no need to revise, and I thought the stiffness arose from preventing the spontaneity from flowing freely in a first draft.
One thing that was not mentioned was the use of a critique group that sees the story new when the writer has spent hours upon hours revising. I have found this kind of group invaluable to crafting something that still contains the fun we want to see in our work.
Me too! I think the SubStack Office Hours might be a good reference for how to get the most out of the SubStack platform. There is also a substack called Fictionistas that is already underway with Zoom meetup events, prompts, etc.
I would be interested in a group for longform writers who are currently working on projects–speculative fiction, memoirs, sci-fi, any genre really, etc. that would include Zoom meetings for readings, exchange of writing via email or links to work in clouds, prior to scheduled reading.
There are many Substack writing groups - I'm partial to one called What now? I was thinking more along the line of a critique group outside the hallowed halls of substack? Can halls this young be hallowed? :)
Thanks for the shout out, Lee! For anyone interested "what now?" (which Lee mentioned) is my substack. We've got a lovely community going over there--join us! https://maryg1.substack.com
Deck the halls with holy substacks! Fa la lala la la la la la! Yes, it might be a lot easier to get a critique group going via the old-fashioned way using phone/email contacts and Zoom meetings could make the readings super live. Let's do it!
Hey Rolf, would you happen to be hob-nobbing with any of the likes of "Dangerous Writers" out in Portland? Tom Spanbauer and Co. I used to fly up to Portland about 20 years ago to hang with them, do weekend intensives, and hole up with them in shared rentals for a couple weeks out at Haystack Beach. Those were the days. And I can credit Tom, Tim Redmond and the others who were doing it dangerously for the passion, crazed work ethic and devotion that I developed by hanging with them.
But my later life has routed abductions, if not by aliens, but via compelling calls to family life. So now I'm far from the joys of Portland, really missing the weather there, too.
I did enjoy a short lived stint after Portland, when I lived in San Francisco, and had an art studio across the bay in an industrial building not far from the East Bay bridge. I hosted a hand picked group to meet at my studio where we kept a rigorous schedule of doing critiques and readings. 2K word count per week plus read three other writers before the next meeting, and have critiques prepared for each piece read.
All that was long before Meet-Ups. Now I'm navigating a wide orbit, while hunkered down in Los Angeles. I really do miss the lovely folks who I befriended through Dangerous Writing, my Bay Area"indie" group, and later on, here in LA, through Meet-Ups.
So I think the next thing to do would be to go over what the shape would be of another critique group, that would fit your schedule/needs beyond the groups you already have, and other logistics like how to shape the group's activities, find who would be on board for a long form critique with a reading component, etc.
If you are interested in pursuing another critique format, or would like to know more about the projects I'm up to, feel free to email me at chec.dubya@gmail.com
Hi Lee, Would you be interested in forming a critique group that includes readings, with a small handful of other long form writers? Sans hallowed halls? Most likely via Zoom for the readings.
A long-form critique group would be good. I'm in a couple of critique groups already, in both the limit is 10,000 words, so novels need to be critiqued in sections over many months, rather than as one continuous read.
Unquestionably the most challenging task in writing, along with all the others.
For me, as with much in writing, the voice is the guide. I'm not even sure what the voice in a story will turn out to be, but it's somewhere inside my skull it will emerge in time. When it does it's pretty well always that of my narrator, who is my protagonist and occasionally not just my protagonist. That voice becomes my instrument, and like any instrument it must be tuned.
This takes time, and many revisions, many micro-adjustments to the words on the page until it sounds right. Like the voice you heard somewhere in your head when you began writing the story. The tuning is kind of like George's analogy of the optician flipping lenses: is it better like this? Or like this? Lovely thought that. And once the instrument is tuned so it sounds real, the magic can happen. Your ear will tell you when you hit a flat note and need to adjust again.
After countless revisions the story can finally come alive and the instrument disappear altogether, leaving only the music of story.
I agree. If I lose the voice in a revision, I can trust the revision isn’t going to help. The tuning will shift away and risk taking the story with it (even for a moment). That may be my main arbiter when it comes to revision.
I read aloud. Sometimes I get this sinking feeling that there's still something wrong-it's like a foul smell in the refrigerator. You might not know what it is, but it's bad. At other times, I just don't know whether I'm finished or not, because the part of your brain that makes hair-thin decisions gets tired easily. I make a cup of tea, and read a printed copy, fast, without respect. If there's something that I can improve, I mark it in red. Then I fix ONLY those mistakes, print it, and call it a night. If you've got that sour-milk smell in your literary nostrils, you have to keep working. But when you get to the point where you just don't know whether it's all right or not, you should get the hell of of there, because you can get very obsessive at that point.
I've also found that if you know where the problem is, you should just remove it and put it in another file. That way, you have to face the bad paragraph, instead of stalling and gilding the lily all around it.
Restoring the reading-mind to freshness is a great way to phrase it... After finishing my fourth revision of a story in as many days, I'm beginning to wonder whether my reading-mind is too fresh or not fresh enough. I find myself cutting, then re-adding, then re-removing, and finally re-re-adding the same minor lines. It's kind of like toggling between images on one of those "spot the difference" puzzles.
Unfortunately I have no advice to add that hasn't already been commented, but if nothing else Story Club is always a wonderful reassurance that I'm not alone.
Sounds like Carver’s comment that he knows he’s done when he takes out a comma, and then next draft adds it back in. Or maybe time to set it on the shelf for a couple weeks and work on something else, to come back with fresh eyes?
I definitely feel like that's where I am right now - the disappearing and reappearing comma draft. Thank you for sharing that valuable insight! Adding his quote to my journal for safekeeping.
George, I'm curious, after your wife's feedback on Pastoralia, did you work resume work from the unfun draft, or did you go back to a previous draft?
Personally, I don't usually think in terms of editing, but just cycle between thinking, rewriting, thinking, rewriting, over and over, until I like it. Sometimes I'll drop the cursor in the middle of an old sentence and start rewriting inside of it, but I'm never, like, crossing things out with a red pen and drawing little loops. I can spend hours just pacing around the livingroom and thinking. Which I'm told isn't good, but I like doing it, and no one's paying me, so.
He would have several piles of paper on the dining room table and be pacing the house and would suddenly dart in there and....do something. She was very respectful about staying out of his process but I wish she'd have said more. :)
From the Introduction to her book: "Pirozhkova describes him in states of trance-like absorption, pacing his room, winding and unwinding string on his fingers, stopping to jot down something."
This makes me think of something Martin Amis wrote:
"Poets are familiar with the sudden surmise that their revisions had better be discontinued (and quickly too), that their so-called improvements are starting to do real harm. Even the novelist shares this fear: you are nervously tampering with an inspiration that is going dead on you."
He goes on to paraphrase Northrop Frye:
"...the begetter of a poem or a novel is more like a mid-wife than a mother: the aim is to get the child into the world with as little damage as possible - and if the creature is alive it will scream to be liberated from 'the navel strings of the feeding tubes of the ego.'"
How many times have you found yourself here? ...nervously tampering with an inspiration that is going dead on you. I love that.
From The Rub of Time. (Author's Note and Acknowledgements "The Natural Sin of Language.")
Love the powerful raw image of the mid wife. I imagine that is why an editor is sort of a soul mate on some level. Is knowing what suggestions to apply instinctual? Thanks for the suggested resource.
What a great discussion! I have a story that was accepted. It was about a doctor whose country patient has a badly broken leg and he won't go into the hospital. So the doctor operates in the kitchen. The farmer has two Percherons, one a colt, and the editor wanted them taken out. I knew they were there for a reason but I didn't know what the reason was! So I took it out. And after publication, I reread the story and knew right away why the horses were there. These racist, foul-mouthed, know-all people loved them. It was their only sign of deep feeling. The people, bad as they were, and uncooperative, etc., loved those horses. It made them human. I put the horses back in, but was careful to see that they fit into that story arc better.
I often over-write right after I've cut cut cut. I'll cut to the tendons (tension) and then go in and put in the whatevers. I often overdo. My key is to read it over and note where I've kept the tension and where the details or backstory kill it. So I can whittle again, but being careful of voice as well as tension. Can't wait to see what tricks everybody uses! This is sooooo valuable.
This reminds me of Carver's "A Small, Good Thing," compared to Gordon Lish's edited version "The Bath." I'm still in the camp of liking Carver's first version. It has a beating heart. Lish's, to me, went overboard. It's the skeleton without the soul. It leaves me cold in the end. And I realize I'm going out on a limb here...and may be in the minority. Lish's version is seen to be the stellar version. I read once that an editor (not sure who), for years, felt that Lish's version was the better one, and then he had a child, and he changed his opinion. I DO have a child, but I've stayed firmly in that first camp, before and after. It's a good example, though, of an example of drastic revision, if any of you are unfamiliar with it. [And it's telling that Carver published his original version later.] xo
I DID like Lish's edits on this, although I wish he would have kept just a smidgen of the man talking wistfully about his wife...perhaps the dancing...or their reunion. Lish's version definitely gives more room for the reader to surmise all sorts of things, but the whole point of the story is to show true love, that ache, that kindness, that need to be with someone. Ha! What do I know? My sneaking suspicion is that we're all so different, as readers. Thank you for providing that link, and mentioning this story. I just reread both this morning. I love these comparisons, and then trying to apply them to my own writing, and you're SO great at explaining WHY we do what we do! xo
Yes, that's a great example. And then, on the others side of things, The New Yorker has two versions of "What We Talk About...." and I think the Lish one is much better - he "finds" that Carveresque voice in his edits.
Well, after a long day of translating (Russian, as it happens . . . ), I read this post . . . backwards. And then, I turned my office chair askance, so that I could write diagonally - anything to put me off my perch of assuredness or surety. Come at it oblique(ly), adjacent(ly), anything to allow it access . . . to me.
In a way, it feels as though I'm a crucible, where things gather about me, *seeking* to gain entry any way they can. They, these ideas, these thoughts and visions, want to join us, have expression just as much as we want them to. It's a partnership, so all of that tweaking, writing and rewriting, pausing just before the next word feels a bit personal, but it's really not. We're working together, this thing, this draft or canvas or print on screen which is an expression of something else, and I.
And each one of us is, really, a unique crucible, where it happens and takes surprising turns available only to each of us individually, with perhaps some crossover or apparent similarities.
One way I've kind of worked out, over the years, is that there are two of me: one, the 'ego,' which is bit overcontrolling and all-knowing, and a lighter, more spontaneous inhabitant (of me) who gets to have a go whenever I let him/it. This (the latter one) is the one who, when presented with a piece of paper, has all kinds of new appearing. I don't really control it, although parts of me are aware.
Maybe those empty plastic bottles in the back of the car, all over the seat and floor, are meant to be there. Overcontrol, and the process may lose its vitality.
The other part to it all, whatever we do, is connection. This must be what all humans, in their various ways and activities, their choice of profession (what we 'profess'), are aiming for. Who does not want to improve, reach for the new, develop, become greater as a person, not in the Joneses' eyes, but in those of the Universe? Why write in the first place . . . ?
Sometimes it's like that VHS tape, it won't go in, but then, seemingly magically, there is a click!, and it's sucked into the VHS player, and a whole new atmosphere appears. Sometimes the revision, especially rewrites, are like that as well.
Something wants to turn me back, get me sitting in my usual pattern. It's comfortable. It's known. It may allow for connection, but if it's tied to the former (in the above description), it may not be.
Now, back to the glories of Russian Federation Ethics Committees and Principal Investigators.
This is a liberating, even healing, ecology.
Thank you to all who contribute, even by their presence, listening.
Full disclosure: this is a repeat of a comment I posted last year about multiple revisions and reductions, when we were on this same topic. I am re-posting now because there a lot of new people here so maybe it will be useful to some other folks. (plus, you know, why not get a little more mileage out of the thing?)
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I wrote an essay for a journal years ago. Might have been about 2,000 words. It was
well received and I thought it was pretty good. Then it got more attention and another
journal called, wanting to publish it in their special back page feature position. It was an honor. It was also limited to 1,000 words. I had to cut my piece in half. I bled. It got tighter. My wife read it and thought it was much better. She couldn't even remember the parts I cut. Then I heard from the Utne Reader, who wanted to promote it with a brief version. They needed it to be 500 words max. I cut it in half again. I bled more. The story started to bleed. I think I passed the point of coherence and it turned into a synopsis. But they published that and I enjoyed the continued publicity. Then I heard from the Pearson Testing Service. They wanted to license it for an essay question on their standardized tests. I thought it was joke. I asked my daughter in law who is an educator. She said, on the contrary, it was an honor, go for it. So I asked how much they wanted. They said 300 words....and...I cut it again. So the synopsis became an excerpt. I learned a tremendous amount about how much fat can be cut and I learned how much of my own absolutely fabulous words were simply expendable, without losing the point. I also learned how it can go too far, lose the overall grace but still communicate the main points, enough for a student, somewhere, to react to it and bring forth their own ideas, and start the cycle over for themselves. Quite the set of lessons about writing and life.
I think a lot of great stuff has been said already. My only tip (and by that I mean it’s what I do, but it might be useful to others) is during early drafts I try not to delete old alternative versions of things that I’m changing in each version. Or put a line through, so that it’s still visible, or sometimes put the old version in square brackets, so I can see it and reconsider the new and old alternatives on subsequent read throughs. Yes, sometimes it is disfigured beyond recognition; but generally something in that old version in brackets, or whatever, gives a hint of how to bring it back.
It reminds me of primary school. We were discouraged from erasers for writing, but to try and put a neat line through things. Who knew it would eventually make sense?!
StoryFinal.doc. StoryFinalFinal.doc. StoryFinalFinalTwo.doc. StoryNewFinal.doc. StoryNewFinalFinal.doc. StoryNewFinalFinal2.doc. NewFolderNewStoryFinal.doc. NewFolder2NewStoryFinal.doc. NewEditsStoryFinal.doc. NewEdits2StoryFinal.doc and so on for the next ten years.....
I was just thinking of starting NewEdit2024. I stopped pretending with Final long ago.
This!
ha!
For a few years now I’ve saved every draft with a date prefix (YYMMDD—eg today’s are 240216). When I start work for the day I duplicate my draft and change the date. It means I can track back if I need—I’m never worried about what’s lost. And it takes the pressure off feeling this one needs to be the “real” draft
They're *all* the real draft.
Yes, this is my practice as well. The files all line up chronologically, it’s East Asian (Chinese, Japanese) date format.
Ha ha ha, Mary - it’s like you’ve bugged my document cloud…
But, seriously, do have this issue because whilst I do love Scrivener for poems, I don’t like the aesthetics of it for drafting actual prose. I tend use other programs, and then cut and paste versions into Scrivener (when I remember), so the Pages /PDF file names are all just like this. I think of all my creative practice, saving tweaked versions, is a nightmare. On Sunday I went back to a short story that needs finishing, and had to search through countless paper edits and different files to try and work out the latest version. I’m still not convinced the one I’ve plumped for is the most recent - it’s a nightmare!!
In Scrivener you can use the Snapshot to keep loads of versions in the same place: in Inspector, click on the Camera icon and then on +. With a click the current copy is saved with its date and you can vandalize your text. Anytime you can go to one of the listed previous svreenshots and retrieve an older version.
Yes, that’s about the only function I use it for. My only issue is that sometimes I’m so eager to edit, I start changing it before I’ve taken the snapshot!
The side-by-side split screen comparison is also another good way to use the snapshot function.
Now I tend to think of my future archivist self and try to give dates, but even then there can be very little difference between 2 edits then the next is a big jump with lots of stuff edited out. Sometimes I add info in the filename about where I sent it.
Lol, this is exactly what my Documents folder looks like!
THIS ^
I get all confused about which draft is which and where that other one went with that passage I loved which is gone now so I have to do a global search of a line from the passage, and twenty revisions show up, all a little different, and so on...
Oh yes! Not to mention the folders counting off the years.
In French that's DEF, then DEFDEF but I go in there with NEW and new (even for stuff written in French)... and add dates.
Yes! This too I do. In mathematics I think it's called "Showing your work"
Yes, Ian, and I guess in that context it gives you a trail, where if you err in your final calculation you can trace your steps and see exactly where you went wrong.
What's that phrase that goes around? Everything we need to know we learned in kindergarten...?
the only thing I remember from kindergarten is that my mother and the teacher (Mrs. Shapiro) had the same umbrella. That really made an impact. Oh, one other thing: all the other kids brought in better snacks than I did.
Hah! I think the saying is supposed to be about kindness, consideration of others, sharing, the power of storytelling...that sort of thing. But yes, never underestimate the power of matching umbrellas. Or snacks.
Wow, Kurt, never heard this - but love it! It’s getting truer and truer as I get older - and to other things than writing too, may I say. :) But yes, the simple things, the simple things…
Back in the olden days when I captained a Smith-Corona I remember cutting pages apart, taping new parts in, and editing only in soft pencil. I can still remember the sound, the crackle of all that tape and liquid paper.
In the software biz, this is called Version Control. I use Track Changes and name the files with different revisions MyStory_1.2 etc. Major revisions (say, after getting feedback from my writing group) warrant a change in the first number. I have a line at the top of the file, before the title, with the day of week, date, revision number, and word count (since in my case, my stories run long and I’m often trying to cut it)
Hello, fellow "Patti with an i"! Thanks for this—I'm not the most organized person (my ex-husband used to refer to my seemingly endless stacks of papers as "Patti's Piles"—sounds painful) and any help in keeping things in some kind of order is appreciated!
Well sometimes the changes pile up and I’ll do an “accept all” while continuing to use Track Changes going forward. I name the file something like MyStory1.5_no_chg_bars.
If you’re using MS-Word you can also compare two versions, whether between rev1.5 and rev1.6 or Rev1.0 and Rev5.3 etc. You can also compare the draft you sent an editor and the draft she sent back.
Good to learn Patti, thanks.
I keep cuts in a separate file, and sometimes I remember I wrote something about this or that and can scroll through that file of cuts and find it.
Great if you can remember them all! I’ve forgotten my own name by lunch, so try to keep as much as I can on the page, for as long as possible, until it hampers flow or readability, then I reluctantly erase stuff on the page; but cut and paste into Scrivener where old drafts are sequenced and easily accessible. But definitely keeping cuts is mega important, as you say, and sometimes they’re so big they need a new place to live or wait to be useful again.
"...Forgotten my own name by lunch...." Loved that! I can totally relate. I think my filing systems are brilliant, until I go back to find something. Then I'm like, "What was I thinking? This is useless. I have to open and read every one of these." Though I will say that search technology has saved me more than once. I can search a specific text string inside a folder full of confusing files and it will 'read' inside each of those files and show me just the matching ones in a list. And in like 5 seconds. Kind of a miracle.
Yes, I have documents and folders saved that have titles like "Scenes for later in MS" or "Cuts Saved for Later." Sometimes I think a passage I cut that wasn't working in a story—but I love the passage—might, with revision, work in a different story. I'm dancing around with an idea about linked stories, and this can work particularly well for that kind of collection.
I also do that. I call the file name-of-work-edits. And I use word's outline tools to find things within that file.
I have that in Google Docs. Each session is a version stored in file history.
Hi Camilla, I don’t know much about Google docs except as a file sharing system. But it sounds really useful in a way which might be similar or different to what I’m suggesting here.
The idea of keeping cuts on the page for a while is that story (as Mary suggests), character, tone (e.g. irony) but more importantly for me, the music (I.e. poetic resonance, syntactic flow and rhythm) is still developing in its early stages, and can have an effect on the beauty of the piece - and hence a) my motivation to finish it b) my ability to make good choices for those later more final drafts. Every word or phrase I’ve written is a little piece of energy/motivation I might not get back - so I try to keep it as useful in the process for as long as I can!
All i would add to George's great advice is this: To ask yourself "what is the purpose of my revision?" And to ask yourself that same question with each draft. When you've written a first draft, the purpose of your revision will (most likely) be to find out what your story actually is. Because you have allowed yourself the freedom to put words on paper, now is the time to look into all of what came up from your subconscious and your conscious minds and see what it is you are telling yourself! It's in there--you just have to find it. You might want to use some tools to parse out the story--a set of questions that will help you see what you have done. And then, once you see a bit more clearly, you revise to story. You keep "revising to story" until the story is there. Along the way, you will find that there may be just one way to tell this particular story. And so, you will need to revise, keeping what makes this story this story, and getting rid of what makes this story something other than what it is. Again, you may want a set of tools/questions to ask yourself in order to do this. I'd call this more of a style revision, although a style revision may very well come about at the same time as your story revision. It all depends on you and what kind of storyteller you are. In the end, when you read your story, you should be able to tell if you have somehow deleted the magic. In that case, revise for magic! I don't know if any of this makes sense to you. My main point is to always first revise for story, if possible. You may have to do that in some backward manner, depending on your personal makeup. But, in the end, you want to have produced a unfied whole with everything leading to your final product of a story. So you keep revising until you get there, and then you look back and make sure you haven't ruined it. Good luck! I hope this is helpful.
last night at a party a friend asked, how do you make up a story? I like this idea of 'revising to story.' Like the story exists, somewhere already made and our job is to bow to this and find it.
Yes. And it DOES exist out there. It's just waiting to be captured.
Kinda like that dream, fully formed and glorious in its completion, that never the less scurries away over the horizon of our waking taunting us to find it again.
Like Michelangelo’s blocks of marble waiting for a sculptor to set the statue free…
“Revise for magic.” Cast a spell of love and wonder.
It makes so much sense. To me.
I like how you put this! The next time I consider killing one of my darlings, I’ll ask myself whether I’m able to see the forest [story]for the trees [darlings].
Yes! This is definitely helpful. And it absolutely makes sense to me.
I struggle with this a lot. Often I'll identify what I believe is a flaw in a story, but find that the flaw is built out of a bunch of things I like. I could eliminate the flaw, but at what cost? I also recognize that no piece of writing is perfect, so there will be flaws no matter what I do, but is this flaw one of the good ones, or not? I like things a little malformed, but I also like things smooth and elegant. Sometimes I will accuse myself of calling a story done out of simple exhaustion, or laziness, or a lack of the proper work ethic. Is the story "good enough," or am I banishing it to mediocrity by even entertaining the question?
Writing is hard.
Yes it is. One thing I find that helps with shorter things like stories or scene is reading aloud. Inadequacies tend to show up, and the overall impression and feel of the work is more apparent I.e. is it a finished feeling? But I’m not gonna lie I tend to save this for final tweak drafts, and often don’t do it at all. Especially with my novel - which I’ve drafted too many times to want to hear it aloud! ;) So, theoretically good advice - how consistently doable it is…
Agreed Merrie! Reading out loud does so much. For me it especially reminds me that the words sound different out of my head than inside it. Sometimes so much so that I change the words.
Yes! Reading aloud is helpful, especially reading aloud to somebody.
Yes…just agreeing. I often find reading aloud what I’m writing valuable. It’s revealing, and sometimes alarming, what a different perspective hearing one’s words spoken brings to how those same words sound in one’s inner ear.
Yes, one can almost squirm a little when you hear what you thought was so good read aloud! Perhaps that’s why I avoid it sometimes - possibly to the detriment of the piece!
I love reading aloud but find that I sometimes give more feeling to my words when I read them aloud-so things can get baked into the text that I maybe should have taken out earlier...
Interesting perspective, Karen. I’m sure you’re not alone.
Hi David. If you're calling a story done because you're exhausted, there's always the option of putting the story aside for a while--even several months--and then looking at it again when you're no longer so exhausted by it. I've put stories aside for so long that sometimes I can't even remember having written them. Then I have completely fresh eyes and energy to do what may need to be done.
My dear friend, the poet Michael Burkard, tells the story of finding a student mss in a drawer, taking it out, reading it, thinking "This is pretty good," and then....realizing he'd written it, MANY years before, and given up on it. Then he sent it out and it was accepted right away. This was "Pennsylvania Collection Agency," I believe.
That's a fantastic story.
Definitely done that before. I love finding old stories I can't remember having written... sometimes they are beyond salvageable but can still teach me a lot about myself and my writing. Often I use them to learn from mistakes.
Yes, that is a great suggestion, and I should probably check my impatience and do that more. But I also have stories I've come back to after months or years, stories I think have at least something worth saving, and find myself in the same pickle. I may just need to follow George's advice in those cases and just cut it until I ruin it, and maybe that can get me out the rut.
There are a lot of things you can try. One would be to read one of those stories to yourself, then put it away completely. Now: rewrite that story. All over again. Then compare the two. Or do as George says, and cut it in half. I once did this to a story of mine that I liked. But as an exercise, I cut the words in half. It was a much better story! Surprise! Or, take those parts "worth saving" and toss the rest. See why you feel those particular parts are "worth saving." What is about them that you like? Can you write outward from them and into a story. Lastly, some stories may not ever work. They are necessary to our development as writers. We need to be grateful for them. But sometimes, you've got to put them in the Dead File and just be done with them.
Guidelines, workflow, walking around with my characters, having an eye for places in my drafts that need to be unpacked, that are too abstract/need to be more sensory, or "on the body". See the places that ramble off of the "fall line" – this is a skier/snowboarder term that refers to being on the "sweet spot" as we fly downhill, that place of greatest momentum while maintaining balance with all the elements, the ice patches, the moguls, the opportunities to "take air", that is, go air born, etc. For me, having lived in the Tahoe Sierras for a few decades (and I will return home again!), the downhill snow sport analogy really speaks to my need for making revisions a process of enhancing freshness. There is a sweet spot in how I experience revisions. And when you're in it, you know it.
Guidelines for me include – finding the awkward parts of drafts written when I'm still developing a primary character. In my crappy drafts, I let myself get to know my characters by "quick! Tell everything that's important about this person who keeps piping up in my head, or that character who keeps showing up in strange places in the story, etc."
Reading out loud the drafts that are up next on the docket, to hear how much revision is going to be needed. I always shake out my drafts with this first. It's also a good way to hear my characters' voices, to know that I have enough distinction with them, that they aren't melding into each other, or even needing to possibly be dropped because the character idea isn't distinct enough from the other characters who are already doing the heavy lifting in the story.
And of course, refining a draft always benefits from line by line edits. Looking for the clunks, places where I'm popped out of the narrative dream, usually by too much "telling" about something through abstractions, using language that fails to evoke an image/along with other senses as much as possible. And again, always being aware of the "fall line", the path of the story that keeps interest moving forward.
Workflow, for me, works like this–
AM work– grab the next dozen or so pages that have been stashed in the drafts drawer. Read out loud the first piece included in the chosen draft sheets. Note the bumps and filter for the other concepts mentioned above. Repeat with each of the next pieces.
Afternoons– walk around, do something physical outside, and converse with a particular character from the work at hand. Come up with questions for them–i.e. "Why do you dream of travel, but stay in your career that keeps you staying put?" "What would inspire you to stop your wandering heart, and just admit that you love and want more from X?" "What drives you to risk your career, to do something so outside of the scientific world, but you don't care? And you've formed a secret cadre of breakaway scientists who meet regularly, late at night, on campus?"
Chatty stuff like that really helps me get to know my characters, to find their quirks, fears, and ambitions. And these internal conversations really contribute to the freshness factor for me.
Evenings–Slam out new draft in a public place, like a cafe, while having dinner, tea, etc. Any place with enough activity to distract/muzzle the overcritical inner editor, and simply let the fingers fly unfettered by anything, pouring it out with no other objective than capturing the story ideas that come through.
Before bed, print out the evening draft double spaced, and place it in the drawer that holds drafts that won't be touched before at least a week has gone by.
Next morning– Review revisions that call to me, read out loud, make notes, on and on...
That analogy to an athletic sweet spot is perfect. As my artist friend likes to say, the energy of a work is what’s important.
Yes! The bardo of an artist– the energy you bring informs the quality of the dimension that your creation emanates from.
Ride the mountain like a wild thing!
I like to take every story I think might be close to being done and cut by a certain percentage, like 15 percent, or by a certain amount of words, forcing me to cut unnecessary words, lines, phrases, redundancies, etc. Almost always I don't miss what I cut. If I do find myself missing a line or phrase, I put it back in. But then I go back and see if there is anything else I can cut to make up for putting those words back. It's like a game, or like sculpting.
Yes, this is such a good thing to do.
I am often asking myself when a story is dead? When is it worth revising? What if I am working on stories that are, as you say, "necessary" for my development but only just that-- a stepping stone, etc. ?
A dead file for which one is yet grateful?
Yes, yes, yes! If I take that out, then I have to go back and edit out everything that pointed to it, or referred to it, and how about the future scenes that refer back to it and, and, and...
Yes. Writing is hard.
Yes. I agree. I guess, and mean guess deliberately rather than in, you know, vernacular speak, one way through this is to try and make the flaw that might need to be there (and I really believe one knows whether it does, ie as you say one of the good ones) as good as it can be, leave it there, and revisit it in the light of what one does next with the story.
David thanks for this my biggest issue is that I never think it is ''ood enough’’. BUT THE PROBLEM IS WHAT IS GOOD ENOUGH. Maybe someone has the answer.
"Always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret." From the introduction to "The Four Agreements" By Don Miguel Ruiz. A Toltec wisdom book.
Thanks I’m. , I appreciate your caring advice. Making assumptions is worse sometimes than telling a white lie. Have a great week.
The Four Agreements resonated with me when it first came out and I read it, because I had already been practicing them! They gave voice to practice, and they've served me well my entire life. I actually think "making assumptions" is more insidious and far more damaging than lying. It's very difficult not to make them though, but it's worth it to try not to.
Yes. Especially when we create as honestly and vulnerably as we possibly can!
Yes, writing is hard work, but I love it. I remind myself that John Grisham said writing is the hardest job he'd ever had, and he had been a lawyer and state legislator. I'd rather write.
I read my work out loud several times to get the rhythm, and then as I read it out loud, I hear where my voice stalls, where a word stumbles, or how a sentence doesn’t flow, sometimes, the word does taste right. It’s clunky, or it doesn’t sound the way people speak or think. Other people record their readings and then listen to the recording to find where they lose the beat. For me, reading out loud works best. It's like my mind is self-correcting my work as I read it out loud.
I read my work out loud too. I learned this from when I used to write radio theater, often on a deadline with not enough time for revision, and when the voice actors would stumble over the words, then I knew I'd written something way too clunky.
I’ve also asked myself the same questions about revision. Those first drafts seemed to have been written so magically I didn’t want to change anything. It was as if whatever I’d written was somehow sacred. But over time I realized that no matter how magical the story seemed to me, if a reader didn’t experience the magic too, I needed to figure out how to convey the magical quality of the story through revision. For example, segments I wrote in one character’s voice could be fit into another character’s voice, if it’s essential information, or something one character sees in an early draft can appear to another character in a later draft. Sometimes when I’m writing, its as if I were seeing a movie, and I’m just transcribing the action. There have been occasions when something happens that I don’t understand, but I keep it in the draft. Not too long ago, I had insight into what something I’d “seen” meant and I conveyed the meaning by developing it further. Another time, I knew what an object in the story was, but had to go back into the story and add a reason for the appearance of that object. In these cases, I’d say the first drafts offer clues, and subsequent drafts further develop the clues, or lead me and my characters to take another path. I also know the feeling that sometimes the supposed facts in a story don’t quite match up, but if they’re unimportant I just say to myself, well the character who thinks that is mistaken, and my narrator is unreliable anyway, so it’s no big deal. As for over-working drafts, I know I’ve done that too. I couldn’t stop rereading the finished text and kept adding words here and there. I later went back and cleaned up those over-worked sentences and removed the unnecessary words. It's easy to go off on some weird tangent and then I say to myself, what was I thinking? And I have to clean up the mess I made.
I love this. I have a similar experience, especially with dialogue. My characters start talking, and I record what they're saying. Many folks say dialogue is what they struggle with most, but I love it. I did a lot of theater in my twenties and thirties, so that might be why I hear dialogue so clearly. After the first draft, I have to go back and cut out stuff that's redundant or unneeded, but it's usually pretty tight upon the first draft.
I've also had that experience that you describe as something happening that you don't understand. I believe that's the subconscious at work on the page. It's "being in flow." I've had characters that I wasn't expecting just walk into a room. Not all of those surprises from the subconscious work, but many of them do, and it's kind of magical.
It's wonderful to be surprised. I like your experience of having a character just walk in and join the conversation. Inspiration takes many forms, and yes, some people are more inclined to hearing and others to seeing the scenes play out. My muse seems to direct the story and when the story is really inhabiting me, even when I’m revising, I’ll know I need to do something a bit differently and I’ll change it accordingly. It’s also the knowing. I’ll simply know something about a character or a scene. The creative process definitely calls for deep listening and trust. Trust in the voices and inspirations. I also agree with the comment that ideas sometimes need expression. I can imagine those ideas somehow floating around in the air and taking possession of my fingers as I tap, tap, tap the keyboard. The art of storytelling is like none other. And this is why people have been telling stories since we became homo sapiens, or maybe even earlier in our seemingly timeless lineage. We walk in the footprints of our ancestors.
My stories play like movies in my head too :) Or I get a narratio "off screen" from a character whose voice is so strong, it's all that I can do to type fast enough to catch all that.
I love what you are saying. Especially the off-screen character. I need to think about that. I'm not sure I've experienced it.
I'm think my head is tuned to narration from audio input as much as visual. Think it might've started in my youth, doing animation for many years.
I know it's kind of a weird idea for some writers. I once read a detective/police procedure genre writer who flat out said that writers who "hear" their character's voices are surely just "full of sh..!
Well, it takes all kinds. And now that I mentioned it to you, if you do start hearing voices, maybe just be careful about who you tell about it ;-)
And never worry about telling me!
You've got me laughing.
🤣Fun!
I think the movie-watching analogy is very helpful. Or is it a metaphor?
No, not a metaphor. Once when I had just begun to write I talked with a woman who had been writing for a while and she said, she saw the action like a movie and I thought, I'd like to see movies too. And then I did. It doesn't always happen, but sometimes it's like seeing, not with the vividness of a dream, but more like imagining an image. I don't know how else to explain it. Or, sometimes when you are falling asleep you may have hypnagogic images. But I have trained myself to just open to the imagination, and write, and it just speaks to me. That's the first draft. Then I have to go into another state of mind when I work on the sentences, cut and paste, etc. etc. etc.
I had a friend who wrote her memoir and when I read it, I thought it sounded very stiff. She told me she wrote each sentence with perfect grammar and had no need to revise, and I thought the stiffness arose from preventing the spontaneity from flowing freely in a first draft.
One thing that was not mentioned was the use of a critique group that sees the story new when the writer has spent hours upon hours revising. I have found this kind of group invaluable to crafting something that still contains the fun we want to see in our work.
I’m all for starting a story club critique group if others are! I think they are invaluable.
Me too! I think the SubStack Office Hours might be a good reference for how to get the most out of the SubStack platform. There is also a substack called Fictionistas that is already underway with Zoom meetup events, prompts, etc.
I would be interested in a group for longform writers who are currently working on projects–speculative fiction, memoirs, sci-fi, any genre really, etc. that would include Zoom meetings for readings, exchange of writing via email or links to work in clouds, prior to scheduled reading.
I didn’t read your post fully enough. Yes a group that meets on zoom and has a protocol for giving and receiving manuscripts and critiques!
There are many Substack writing groups - I'm partial to one called What now? I was thinking more along the line of a critique group outside the hallowed halls of substack? Can halls this young be hallowed? :)
Thanks for the shout out, Lee! For anyone interested "what now?" (which Lee mentioned) is my substack. We've got a lovely community going over there--join us! https://maryg1.substack.com
Deck the halls with holy substacks! Fa la lala la la la la la! Yes, it might be a lot easier to get a critique group going via the old-fashioned way using phone/email contacts and Zoom meetings could make the readings super live. Let's do it!
Meet Up is where I've found a couple of critique groups I'm in. They both do zoom, but the first one I joined met in person before Covid.
Hey Rolf, would you happen to be hob-nobbing with any of the likes of "Dangerous Writers" out in Portland? Tom Spanbauer and Co. I used to fly up to Portland about 20 years ago to hang with them, do weekend intensives, and hole up with them in shared rentals for a couple weeks out at Haystack Beach. Those were the days. And I can credit Tom, Tim Redmond and the others who were doing it dangerously for the passion, crazed work ethic and devotion that I developed by hanging with them.
But my later life has routed abductions, if not by aliens, but via compelling calls to family life. So now I'm far from the joys of Portland, really missing the weather there, too.
I did enjoy a short lived stint after Portland, when I lived in San Francisco, and had an art studio across the bay in an industrial building not far from the East Bay bridge. I hosted a hand picked group to meet at my studio where we kept a rigorous schedule of doing critiques and readings. 2K word count per week plus read three other writers before the next meeting, and have critiques prepared for each piece read.
All that was long before Meet-Ups. Now I'm navigating a wide orbit, while hunkered down in Los Angeles. I really do miss the lovely folks who I befriended through Dangerous Writing, my Bay Area"indie" group, and later on, here in LA, through Meet-Ups.
So I think the next thing to do would be to go over what the shape would be of another critique group, that would fit your schedule/needs beyond the groups you already have, and other logistics like how to shape the group's activities, find who would be on board for a long form critique with a reading component, etc.
If you are interested in pursuing another critique format, or would like to know more about the projects I'm up to, feel free to email me at chec.dubya@gmail.com
Hi Lee, Would you be interested in forming a critique group that includes readings, with a small handful of other long form writers? Sans hallowed halls? Most likely via Zoom for the readings.
If you are, feel free to email me – chec.dubya@gmail.com
A long-form critique group would be good. I'm in a couple of critique groups already, in both the limit is 10,000 words, so novels need to be critiqued in sections over many months, rather than as one continuous read.
Lee:=The memoir group is open. To join call John Poignand -7748100610 or The
Eldridge Public Library 508945-5170. . It is casual and the people are wonderful and great writers. come join us. Gloria
In person or virtual as well?
I am interested. Pat
Yes!
Hi, Toby are. Do you have any relationship with Bob Hecht writer who lives in France? He is in my memoir writing group. Gloria
Memoir writing group? Ohh. Closed or open? Asking for a friend…😉
No, not a relative. It's a fairly common name. When we visited Germany, there were thousands of Hechts.
Thanks Toby. It is a; small world when it comes to writers.
Unquestionably the most challenging task in writing, along with all the others.
For me, as with much in writing, the voice is the guide. I'm not even sure what the voice in a story will turn out to be, but it's somewhere inside my skull it will emerge in time. When it does it's pretty well always that of my narrator, who is my protagonist and occasionally not just my protagonist. That voice becomes my instrument, and like any instrument it must be tuned.
This takes time, and many revisions, many micro-adjustments to the words on the page until it sounds right. Like the voice you heard somewhere in your head when you began writing the story. The tuning is kind of like George's analogy of the optician flipping lenses: is it better like this? Or like this? Lovely thought that. And once the instrument is tuned so it sounds real, the magic can happen. Your ear will tell you when you hit a flat note and need to adjust again.
After countless revisions the story can finally come alive and the instrument disappear altogether, leaving only the music of story.
What I try for anyway.
With my astigmatism getting so bad, my doctor usually shrugs and says “eh…close enough.” Might be an analogy for my writing?
I agree. If I lose the voice in a revision, I can trust the revision isn’t going to help. The tuning will shift away and risk taking the story with it (even for a moment). That may be my main arbiter when it comes to revision.
I read aloud. Sometimes I get this sinking feeling that there's still something wrong-it's like a foul smell in the refrigerator. You might not know what it is, but it's bad. At other times, I just don't know whether I'm finished or not, because the part of your brain that makes hair-thin decisions gets tired easily. I make a cup of tea, and read a printed copy, fast, without respect. If there's something that I can improve, I mark it in red. Then I fix ONLY those mistakes, print it, and call it a night. If you've got that sour-milk smell in your literary nostrils, you have to keep working. But when you get to the point where you just don't know whether it's all right or not, you should get the hell of of there, because you can get very obsessive at that point.
I've also found that if you know where the problem is, you should just remove it and put it in another file. That way, you have to face the bad paragraph, instead of stalling and gilding the lily all around it.
It’s always the sour milk. Throw it out. Buy new carton.
Restoring the reading-mind to freshness is a great way to phrase it... After finishing my fourth revision of a story in as many days, I'm beginning to wonder whether my reading-mind is too fresh or not fresh enough. I find myself cutting, then re-adding, then re-removing, and finally re-re-adding the same minor lines. It's kind of like toggling between images on one of those "spot the difference" puzzles.
Unfortunately I have no advice to add that hasn't already been commented, but if nothing else Story Club is always a wonderful reassurance that I'm not alone.
Sounds like Carver’s comment that he knows he’s done when he takes out a comma, and then next draft adds it back in. Or maybe time to set it on the shelf for a couple weeks and work on something else, to come back with fresh eyes?
I definitely feel like that's where I am right now - the disappearing and reappearing comma draft. Thank you for sharing that valuable insight! Adding his quote to my journal for safekeeping.
George, I'm curious, after your wife's feedback on Pastoralia, did you work resume work from the unfun draft, or did you go back to a previous draft?
Personally, I don't usually think in terms of editing, but just cycle between thinking, rewriting, thinking, rewriting, over and over, until I like it. Sometimes I'll drop the cursor in the middle of an old sentence and start rewriting inside of it, but I'm never, like, crossing things out with a red pen and drawing little loops. I can spend hours just pacing around the livingroom and thinking. Which I'm told isn't good, but I like doing it, and no one's paying me, so.
That "pacing around the livingroom and thinking" is, supposedly, what Babel did (or one thing he did) per his wife's memoir. :)
Yep, Asperger's is quite a trip!
It's in here somewhere:
https://www.amazon.com/At-His-Side-Years-Isaac/dp/1883642981
He would have several piles of paper on the dining room table and be pacing the house and would suddenly dart in there and....do something. She was very respectful about staying out of his process but I wish she'd have said more. :)
From the Introduction to her book: "Pirozhkova describes him in states of trance-like absorption, pacing his room, winding and unwinding string on his fingers, stopping to jot down something."
This makes me think of something Martin Amis wrote:
"Poets are familiar with the sudden surmise that their revisions had better be discontinued (and quickly too), that their so-called improvements are starting to do real harm. Even the novelist shares this fear: you are nervously tampering with an inspiration that is going dead on you."
He goes on to paraphrase Northrop Frye:
"...the begetter of a poem or a novel is more like a mid-wife than a mother: the aim is to get the child into the world with as little damage as possible - and if the creature is alive it will scream to be liberated from 'the navel strings of the feeding tubes of the ego.'"
How many times have you found yourself here? ...nervously tampering with an inspiration that is going dead on you. I love that.
From The Rub of Time. (Author's Note and Acknowledgements "The Natural Sin of Language.")
Love the powerful raw image of the mid wife. I imagine that is why an editor is sort of a soul mate on some level. Is knowing what suggestions to apply instinctual? Thanks for the suggested resource.
What a great discussion! I have a story that was accepted. It was about a doctor whose country patient has a badly broken leg and he won't go into the hospital. So the doctor operates in the kitchen. The farmer has two Percherons, one a colt, and the editor wanted them taken out. I knew they were there for a reason but I didn't know what the reason was! So I took it out. And after publication, I reread the story and knew right away why the horses were there. These racist, foul-mouthed, know-all people loved them. It was their only sign of deep feeling. The people, bad as they were, and uncooperative, etc., loved those horses. It made them human. I put the horses back in, but was careful to see that they fit into that story arc better.
I often over-write right after I've cut cut cut. I'll cut to the tendons (tension) and then go in and put in the whatevers. I often overdo. My key is to read it over and note where I've kept the tension and where the details or backstory kill it. So I can whittle again, but being careful of voice as well as tension. Can't wait to see what tricks everybody uses! This is sooooo valuable.
This reminds me of Carver's "A Small, Good Thing," compared to Gordon Lish's edited version "The Bath." I'm still in the camp of liking Carver's first version. It has a beating heart. Lish's, to me, went overboard. It's the skeleton without the soul. It leaves me cold in the end. And I realize I'm going out on a limb here...and may be in the minority. Lish's version is seen to be the stellar version. I read once that an editor (not sure who), for years, felt that Lish's version was the better one, and then he had a child, and he changed his opinion. I DO have a child, but I've stayed firmly in that first camp, before and after. It's a good example, though, of an example of drastic revision, if any of you are unfamiliar with it. [And it's telling that Carver published his original version later.] xo
Here's that comparison...
https://biblioklept.org/2011/03/02/read-gordon-lishs-edit-of-raymond-carvers-what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-love/
George, yes, I found this link when searching for the differences, after you replied. That link to Beginners still exists, but the link to the Lish edits at The New Yorker no longer works. It's easy enough to search the original story, though, and compare. Here's Lish's version: https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/adam.castaneda2/engl1301-2/course-readings/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-love-raymond-carver/view
I DID like Lish's edits on this, although I wish he would have kept just a smidgen of the man talking wistfully about his wife...perhaps the dancing...or their reunion. Lish's version definitely gives more room for the reader to surmise all sorts of things, but the whole point of the story is to show true love, that ache, that kindness, that need to be with someone. Ha! What do I know? My sneaking suspicion is that we're all so different, as readers. Thank you for providing that link, and mentioning this story. I just reread both this morning. I love these comparisons, and then trying to apply them to my own writing, and you're SO great at explaining WHY we do what we do! xo
That's fascinating. I'd go along with all Lish's edits (particularly the backstory cuts) but one:
"Terri looked around the table [at us and then looked at her hands on her glass]. "
I'd have put:
"Terri looked around the table then looked at her hands on her glass."
It's central to the story, imo. An outward movement, questioning, perhaps challenging, then inward, introspective, uncertain.
See it as a movie.
Yes, that's a great example. And then, on the others side of things, The New Yorker has two versions of "What We Talk About...." and I think the Lish one is much better - he "finds" that Carveresque voice in his edits.
I'm also partial to the Carver version. It has more heart.
Well, after a long day of translating (Russian, as it happens . . . ), I read this post . . . backwards. And then, I turned my office chair askance, so that I could write diagonally - anything to put me off my perch of assuredness or surety. Come at it oblique(ly), adjacent(ly), anything to allow it access . . . to me.
In a way, it feels as though I'm a crucible, where things gather about me, *seeking* to gain entry any way they can. They, these ideas, these thoughts and visions, want to join us, have expression just as much as we want them to. It's a partnership, so all of that tweaking, writing and rewriting, pausing just before the next word feels a bit personal, but it's really not. We're working together, this thing, this draft or canvas or print on screen which is an expression of something else, and I.
And each one of us is, really, a unique crucible, where it happens and takes surprising turns available only to each of us individually, with perhaps some crossover or apparent similarities.
One way I've kind of worked out, over the years, is that there are two of me: one, the 'ego,' which is bit overcontrolling and all-knowing, and a lighter, more spontaneous inhabitant (of me) who gets to have a go whenever I let him/it. This (the latter one) is the one who, when presented with a piece of paper, has all kinds of new appearing. I don't really control it, although parts of me are aware.
Maybe those empty plastic bottles in the back of the car, all over the seat and floor, are meant to be there. Overcontrol, and the process may lose its vitality.
The other part to it all, whatever we do, is connection. This must be what all humans, in their various ways and activities, their choice of profession (what we 'profess'), are aiming for. Who does not want to improve, reach for the new, develop, become greater as a person, not in the Joneses' eyes, but in those of the Universe? Why write in the first place . . . ?
Sometimes it's like that VHS tape, it won't go in, but then, seemingly magically, there is a click!, and it's sucked into the VHS player, and a whole new atmosphere appears. Sometimes the revision, especially rewrites, are like that as well.
Something wants to turn me back, get me sitting in my usual pattern. It's comfortable. It's known. It may allow for connection, but if it's tied to the former (in the above description), it may not be.
Now, back to the glories of Russian Federation Ethics Committees and Principal Investigators.
This is a liberating, even healing, ecology.
Thank you to all who contribute, even by their presence, listening.
Yes, I like what you say about the ideas wanting to join us, wanting expression, and our job is to express them well.
Your advice this week reads as a dare. Why is it so scary to "keep cutting until you ruin it"?
Dooo it!