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

The Internet has ruined my revision skills.

First of all, the pace of the web makes me rush and make mizdakes in spelling and gramma. Even worse, when I go sit at the writing desk and work on my novel, my mind is still churning at webby speeds--and I can't give my writing the slow, quiet revision it deserves.

Today author Donald Ray Pollock explains how he revised his short stories about his Ohio hometown in his first-book, Knockemstiff. His writing reads so smoothly that you don't even notice the painstaking revision and rewriting underneath his work.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
Your prose reads effortlessly. It seems like your characters had hundreds of stories to tell us--how did you edit these rambling, difficult voices into such sharp little stories? Any advice for loosening uptight, boring prose?

Donald Ray Pollock:

I’m not sure, but I get the feeling that many people don’t like to revise, at least to the extent that is necessary to really make the story sharp.  I mean, with my stuff, that first draft is just a rambling mess and not even close to being a story. Continue reading...

It’s only after I’ve revised it four of five times that I coax the story to the top.  After that, I need to revise it several more times, hell, maybe ten more times.  I try my best not to be a windbag, and I work on cutting any word that isn’t necessary to the telling of the story. 

But there is also a fine “balancing” act going on because you need to create some sort of world at the same time, so you do need a certain number of words.  Instead of loosening the boring prose, maybe the writer needs to tighten it. 

Also, you have to pick details or descriptions that nail the character.  You usually don’t need a page to do this, but maybe just a couple of sentences.  In other words, don’t overdo it for the sake of filling up pages with “fine” writing.  Another piece of advice I got early on in the MFA program was to read the story out loud. 

Most of the students I had in my fiction classes didn’t want to do that, but it’s one of the best ways to pick up on sloppy writing.