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Blogs by Richard French
The Struggle and Joy of Revising 11/10/2014 5:10:49 PM
The old saying "writing is rewriting" surely is true for me. Revising a long work takes stamina and faith, but persistence receives its reward, including gifts of insight into one's work and oneself. Here are some things I include as I rework.
•Remove repetitions and anything that slows down the narrative.
•I tend to natter on with insignificant or obvious reflections -- temporary, first-draft filler that I reduce, revise, and toss out.
•I straighten out awkward sentences.
•I remove stale comments and replace them with what seem sharper and more original observations. I often need to rework these, too.
•My narratives are apt to be low-energy, so as I make my way through a story, I'm likely to add scenes for reader interest -- arson and a subsequent trial in one case, an armed skirmkish in another.
•If I find myself puzzling over a passage, I ask -- what purpose does this serve? How does it function in the narrative?
•If I hesitate over a sentence or a paragraph, I rely on another old maxim: "when in doubt, leave it out". I'm never ruthless, though. I proceed with a quiet mind.
•Since my writing is old-fashioned by today's standards without much explicit sex, violence, or profanity, I need to keep a sharp eye out for anything that might bore the reader. Here my natural impatience helps -- probably the only thing it's ever good for.
•I try to tie up loose ends, e. g. what happens to a minor character's woman friend?
•How does the theme of the story -- the search for new life in the case of one novel -- tie in with what happens to the main characters? I think it through. A practice that helps me avoid limp endings.
Revising brings me deeper into a story, makes me intimate with characters, situations, and language a way of bringing both a piece of writing and myself to life.
