When I’m drafting my novels I think in threes: first draft is fast and lean and messy (remember Anne Lamott and shitty first drafts); second draft (aka revision) comes after I’ve had the chance to take a breather and then give my book a focused read so I can sense what needs expanding, cutting, honing, deepening, this time moving at a slower pace–remember that revision is seeing again with fresh eyes; if all goes well my third draft is about “housekeeping”–tidying up, freshening up, tossing out, and adding the final touches. When I speak with writers, some new to the …
Tag: editing process
Fiction, the Mind, and Ghosts
“So far we’ve looked at two places where you can put the character emotion you’ve stripped out of your dialogue mechanics–into the dialogue itself and into the language of your descriptions written from an intimate point of view. A third place is interior monologue. Movies and television may be influencing writers to write more visually, using immediate scenes with specific points of view to put their stories across. But fiction can always accomplish something that visual media will never be able to touch.” From Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King In other words: The fiction writer …
Fiction According to John Irving: “You might say I back into a novel.”
Fiction according to John Irving: “You might say I back into a novel. All the important discoveries–at the end of a book–these are the things I have to know before I know where to begin.” In his lucid book THE FICTION EDITOR, THE NOVEL, AND THE NOVELIST, editor and author Thomas McCormack quotes Irving to say: “I want to know how a book feels after the main events are over. The authority of the storyteller’s voice–of mine, anyway–comes from knowing how it all comes out before you begin…” This quote comes in the midst of Thomas McCormack’s discussion of what …