For the last year I've been staring at my manuscript, scribbling, adjusting, adding, subtracting, dividing and editing. I'm learning to be merciless.
Today, the lovable Pinky's PaperHaus blog has a report from a lecture by novelist George Saunders about the fine art of editing. His advice about trimming a first draft is priceless. Listen to Pinky describe it:
"He gave us a funny example that began with 'John walked into the well-appointed living room and sat down on the yellow couch' — why well-appointed? he asked. What year is this? Then, why walked in? It’s the beginning of your story - so John’s just now appeared on the page. If walking in isn’t important to the story, cut it. By the end of his example, he’d killed everything but 'John.'"
If we will ever escape the first draft, we must learn that kind of merciless editing. If you need another example, check out New Yorker writer Alex Ross. Here in this post, Ross explained how he methodically cut down his book from 390,000 words to 250,000 words in 20 months. That's like chopping off an entire extra book. That's merciless.
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