Revision

An Element of Fiction

I have heard of writers who never revise. Either they are manifestations of pure genius, or they are arrogant beyond comprehension (‘I simply don’t need to revise; I am perfect out of the gate’).

When I was researching my Elements of Fiction, I was surprised at the emphasis given by writers and teachers to Revision. I had not given the notion much thought, and initially felt a little reluctant of the need to revise, but as I wrote more and more (and grew wiser and wiser) I came to see why Revision held such a cherished position among the elements.

The quotes below illustrate why.

Jacques Barzun, always willing to enlighten us: “There are always too many words at first.”

He then goes on to say, “Look for all the fancy wordings and get rid of them… Avoid all terms and expressions, old or new, that embody affectation.”

John Gardner, always a fount of wisdom: “Rewrite until the story flows as naturally as a river, each element so blending with the rest that no one, not even yourself two years from now, can locate the separate parts.”

Anton Chekhov, one of my favorite short story writers, in a letter to Gorky gave this advice, “When you read proof, take out the adjectives and adverbs wherever you can. You use so many of them that the reader finds it hard to concentrate and he gets tired. You can understand what I mean when I say, ‘The man sat on the grass.’ You understand because the sentence is clear and there is nothing to distract your attention. Conversely, the brain has trouble understanding me if I say, ‘A tall, narrow-chested man of medium height with a red beard sat on green grass trampled by passers-by, sat mutely, looking about timidly and fearfully.’ This doesn’t get its meaning through to the brain immediately, which is what good writing must do, and fast.”

Elie Wiesel makes a nice point: “Writing is… like sculpture, where you eliminate to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.”

And another great point from Elizabeth Hardwick: “It’s one of the things writing students don’t understand. They write a first draft and are quite disappointed, or often should be disappointed. They don’t understand that they have merely begun, and that they may be merely beginning even in the second or third draft.”

And Virginia Woolf puts it brilliantly, “And I have been writing and writing and rewriting the scene by the Round Pond. What I want to do is to reduce it all so that each sentence, though perfectly natural dialogue, has a great pressure of meaning behind it.”

And how about Lu Chi from his Wen Fu, “Only through writing and then revising and revising may one gain the necessary insight.”

W.B. Yeats on the difference between prose and poetry, “The correcting of prose is endless, because it has no fixed laws; a poem comes right with a click, like a box.”

Barzun elaborates on the subject, “Once you have ‘something down,’ as professional writers say, the job of verifying, improving, cutting, and polishing is pure pleasure. Unlike the sculptor, the writer can start carving and enjoying himself only after he has dug the marble out of his own head — pity the poor writer.

“A good judge of the facts has declared: ‘All writing is rewriting.’ He meant good writing, for easy reading. The path to rewriting is obvious: when rereading after a shorter or longer lapse of time what one has written, one feels dissatisfaction with this or that word, sentence, paragraph — or possibly with the whole effort, the essay or chapter. If, as I shall assume, things are not totally bad, the rewriting affects only bits here and there. The criterion is as it has been throughout: Meaning. If words you have set down puzzle you once you have forgotten how they came to your mind, they will puzzle the stranger and you must do something about them — rediscover your meaning and express it, not some other or none at all.

“Rewriting is called revision in the literary and publishing trade because it springs from re-viewing, that is to say, looking at your copy again — and again and again.

“Exacting writers are known to have rewritten a famous paragraph or chapter six or seven times. It then looked right to them, because every demand of their art had been met, every flaw removed, down to the slightest.

“The first job, then, is to look at what one has spontaneously written and go over it critically. This is not easy. The mind tends to run along the groove of one’s intention and overlooks the actual expression. That is why writers usually put their work aside for some days and go back to revise when the ideas have faded from the memory and they can scrutinize the wording with a stranger’s eye. But this delay has one drawback. If the first draft is not reread on the very day of writing, one or more phrases may later prove incomprehensible, their meaning irrecoverable. Hence the first brushing up while one’s intent is fresh in the mind.

“Revision is the time when survivors of earlier purges are to be eliminated.”

As for John Gardner, “All that matters is that, going over and over the sketch as if one had all eternity for finishing one’s story, one improves now this sentence, now that, noticing what changes the new sentences urge, and in the process one gets the characters and their behavior clearer in one’s head, gradually discovering deeper and deeper implications of the character’s problems and hopes. Fiction does not spring into the world full grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes fiction original and profound.”

And back to Lu Chi with these gems, “The general inspects his men for every minutest detail, down to each single hair.

“Only when revisions are precise may the building stand square and plumb.

“Where truth and virtue are threatened, I must surrender even my favorite jewels.”

William Zinsser has also pondered this subject, “Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost. That idea is hard to accept. We all have an emotional equity in our first draft; we can’t believe that it wasn’t born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn’t.

“Most rewriting consists of reshaping and tightening and refining the raw material you wrote on your first try.”

As has Ursula K. Le Guin, “In revision, as a rough rule, if the beginning can be cut, cut it. And if any passage sticks out in some way, leaves the main trajectory, could possibly come out — take it out and see what the story looks like that way. Often a cut that seemed sure to leave a terrible hole joins up without a seam. It’s as if the story, the work itself, has a shape it’s trying to achieve, and will take that shape if you’ll only clear away the verbiage.”

As has John Fowles, “Revision writing’s very different — you have to turn yourself into an academic and mark yourself. With this, of course, comes the research. And I find that rather boring.

“You have to be cold-blooded and ruthless. You can fall in love with passages, but if they are not quite what’s needed then you have to strike them out. At the revision stage you’ve got to be the master.”

Barnaby Conrad, a great teacher, has this to say, “After I write an article, a chapter or a story, I read it through several times, looking for specific things each time. First, I look for clichés and ways to enliven the images. Then I read it looking only at the verbs — can I get a stronger, more apt verb in each sentence? Next, the adjectives: Do I really need them all? The same with adverbs — do I need any of them? Then I read the dialogue aloud, trying to make it sound more natural and colloquial, seeking to eliminate the words we do in real life (‘Forget something?’ instead of ‘Did you forget something?’ for instance).”

Back to Virginia Woolf, “I begin to see what I had in mind; and want to begin cutting out the masses of irrelevance and clearing, sharpening and making the good phrases shine.”

E.B. White tells us, “Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.”

More wisdom from John Gardner, “What the honest writer does, when he’s finished a rough draft, is go over it and over it, time after time, refusing to let anything stay if it looks awkward, phony or forced.

“Fiction, like sculpture or painting, begins with a rough sketch. One gets down the characters and their behavior any way one can, knowing the sentences will have to be revised, knowing the characters’ actions may change.”

And from Le Guin, “Tactically speaking, I’d say go ahead and crowd in the first draft — put everything in. Then in revising decide what counts, what tells; and cut and recombine till what’s left is what counts… in revising consider what merely pads or repeats or slows or impedes your story and cut it.

“Revision will almost always involve some cutting of repetitions, unnecessary explanations, and so on. Consider using revision consciously as a time to consider what could go if it had to… You are allowed to cry and moan softly while you cut them.

“Anton Chekhov gave some advice about revising a story: first, he said, throw out the first three pages.

“If there’s one thing almost all writers agree on, it’s that we can’t trust our judgment on our own freshly written work.”

As for Ernest Hemingway, “No one can see it until you have gone over it again and again until you have communicated the emotion, the sights and the sounds to the reader.”

Sol Stein advises, “Eliminate the redundance — two images that convey the same thing make the reader conscious of the images instead of letting the reader experience the effect.”

And as for Philip Gerard when it comes to review and re-write, “Don’t read your draft in self-congratulatory appreciation. Read it instead for what is there, not what you intended to put there.

“Don’t fool yourself: Read what is actually on the page, not the brilliant unwritten story in your imagination.

“Listen to the story tell you its intentions. Which themes are really coming through?

“Usually if you think that a work is too long, your reader will agree with you wholeheartedly.”

Salman Rushdie shares, “All the sentences changed, because in the first draft I wasn’t too worried about the actual words, I was trying to get the story down. I use first drafts in a very rough way, almost to find out what’s happening.”

And as for Anton Chekhov, “My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying… one must ruthlessly suppress everything that is not concerned with the subject.”

I like Dorothy Parkers confession, “I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence — no first draft. I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”

And sage advice from George Simenon, “Track down and cross out the literary touches — adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a beautiful sentence — cut it.”

And let’s end off with a blunt truth from Hemingway, “All first drafts are shit.”

‘Nuff said.

© Wolfstuff