Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

"Well, I want to hear [a story] about me, I guess. Something good, where I get married or at least get a girl. Maybe I'm famous or something. You could make me rich if you want." 

That's an excerpt from Willy Vlautin's road novel, The Motel Life. It follows the trail of an alcoholic storyteller as he struggles to redeem himself and his brother after a horrible accident. Vlautin cut his teeth as a storyteller in the alt-country band, Richmond Fontaine, singing tales of other ruined souls.

Today, he talks about the fine art of revision, teaching us how to sharpen our stories in my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions.

In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
John Fante and Charles Bukowski are big influences for you. Both writers create polished novels that feel raw, uncontrolled and dangerous. How did you edit your novel without losing that raw energy of the story? In other words, how can we edit our manuscripts without losing the punk rock feeling of a first draft? 

Willy Vlautin:

You know I re-wrote THE MOTEL LIFE six or seven times. Continue reading...

Half of those were major re-writes.

So I'm not sure I work the way of the first draft being the best draft. To me it's about getting to the heart of the story and to the heart of the character. For me it takes time, and I'm not the smartest that way.

I have great respect for Charles Bukowski that way. You hear he would just write them once and move on.  I'm more like Raymond Carver who said he could write a mediocre 40 page story, and turn it into a pretty good 20 page story.

I'm not saying I'm anywhere in the league of either of those guys but I usually write a rough first draft and sit there for hours and hours trying to stop the leaks.