First you write. Then you REVISE. Then you edit and publish.
Because revision is an essential step, many writing gurus today advise: “Write your first draft from beginning to end at blazing speed, just to get it down. Stop for nothing—research, grammar, structure, polish—just get it down. It’s great for your first draft to be total crap. You will fix it in the revision phase.”
Your New Favorite Writer does not buy this. Your New Favorite Writer has never bought this. I know of no way to write but with extreme care, right from the start. Gentle Reader, if I had my way, I would write a perfect first draft and have no need for revision. But I am incapable of such a feat.
Thus I revise, over and over again, while producing the first draft of a novel. I go back, re-read the little bit I have written, and improve it based on new insights. Then I go on and write a little bit more.
Using this method, by the time I complete the “first draft” of my novel, what I really have is a fifteenth draft of the early parts, tenth drafts of other parts, sixth drafts of other parts—and virtually no portion of the work that is fresh off my keyboard as a virgin first draft.
Here I stand. I can do no other. (Luther is reputeded to have said that, and I echo him.)
Once I have this multi-layered apparent first draft—what do you think? It still needs revision! Lots of it. I’m talking about author’s revisions, before we get to copy-editing and proofreading.
Let’s raise a toast to the Revision Phase—99 percent drudgery and 100 percent sheer joy.
How Does it Work?
Here’s how it works:
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I place my cursor at the top of Page One. Then, using the “Find” feature of my word processor, I search for every example of “ly” in the whole manuscript. The two letters “ly” commonly appear at the end of adverbs. There are some adverbs that do not end in -ly, like “slow”, “fast”, “often”, etc. And there are -ly words that do not happen to be adverbs, like “lily” or “family.” But most of the -lys I turn up will be adverbs. I examine each -ly word in the whole manuscript, all 342 of them, checking whether it justifies itself or whether that sentence can be written better.
Why do this? Adverbs can easily sap one’s prose of vitality. It is all too easy to sprinkle your writing with suddenlys, quicklys, smilinglys, and so on. Removing many of these adverbs will make your prose read stronger. Sometimes, you need the meaning of the adverb, but there is a better way to provide it: for example, by choosing a more precise verb. Instead of “He ran quickly to the scene of the fire,” you can write “He raced to the scene of the fire.”
Now, here’s the tricky part: There are adverbs that are necessary and justified. Identifying those, picking them out from the disposable ones, is why we writers are paid, as you know, fabulous sums of money.
Having thrown out every ill-advised -ly adverb in the whole manuscript, I go back to Page One. Now, I insert “ing” into the Find box. As with “ly,” there are innocent words that happen to include “ing,” like “spring” or “harbinger.” But most words that end -ing are gerunds (derivative nouns made from verbs), present participles (derivative adjectives made from verbs), or present progressive verbs (“I’m singin’ in the rain”). Many of these -ing words are accomplices in the mugging of otherwise healthy prose. Once again, I interrogate each one I find, asking, “Are you really necessary? Or can I say this better without you?” Each one, that is, in the whole manuscript, naturally.
Back to Page One to look for ands. Then ors. Then buts. Some are indispensable, but a lot of those conjunctions just force two sentences together that ought to stand alone. Each conjunction must justify itself, OR ELSE.
Next, I scan for “is.” Often, that little linking verb is just a way to change colorful action into pallid assertion. Likewise for all its irregular variants—was, are, were, etc. Each one, in the whole manuscript, must be tracked down and made to answer for itself. I show them no mercy.
Oh, and then sensory words like “saw,” “heard,” “felt,” “tasted,” “knew.”
“What’s wrong with those?” you ask. When positioned to act as filters, they remove the reader from direct immersion in the scene. Compare:
Sam Spade smelled dead fish as he stepped on to the wharf.
OR,
The harbor reeked of rotting cod.
The first is a third-person report of the character’s sensory intake. The second actually delivers the smell, from the character’s perspective. Either approach, in a given context, might be the right one. Your job is to know which one it is, in this particular context. That’s why we authors, of course, achieve fame and glory. You must make this choice for each example of sensory words, in the whole manuscript.
There other kinds of words and expressions I search for, throughout the whole manuscript, in this way. I won’t continue to bore you with them. But I must bore myself with them, because detailed attention to—well, the details—helps make a manuscript great.
The Second Part
Here’s a kind of reward: Having ferreted out all those little word choices and whipped them into shape, I get to do the fun part.
Back to Page One. But now, instead of searching for single words or phrases, I read my book, as a unified whole, from start to finish, for the first time. Now, I feel for the flow of language, the logic of scenes and descriptions, the power of syntax, the credibility of motives, the rhythm of rising and falling tension and conflict. I try to take it all in and improve it as I go along.
After this final pass of revision, maybe, just maybe the book is ready to show to my publisher.
That’s the fun part. Just in itself, it takes a lot of time. But if I do it right, it adds to my riches and fame.
Why Burden You With All This?
At the very least, Your New Favorite Writer finally got this off his chest.
Now, Dear Reader, you have some idea why it takes so long to write a book.
So, when it finally goes to print, please buy a copy. Read it, love it, review it, and sell it incessantly to all your friends. Help me become rich and famous.
Blessings,
Larry F. Sommers
Your New Favorite Writer
