Revision 411

4. October 2011 by Gore Wehner.

One of the most difficult parts of being a writer–ahem, a good writer–is the revision process. You’ve probably heard the term, “Killing one’s babies.” If not, you will eventually. It means (in a rather morbid fashion) that you will be removing a beloved portion of your story for the greater good of your novel/short story/essay.

Yes, you heard me correctly. Sure, you may be thrilled with a sentence you’ve written. It has pizazz! It has symbolism! It has the mark of a creative mind!

But then someone points out that it has no place in the storyline.

It slowly dawns on you (and by “slowly” I mean it may take a few days to settle in) that your critiquer is correct. Although it’s an awesome sentence–perhaps the best you’ve ever written–it doesn’t add to the story. In fact, it may even take the reader out of the story, it’s so profound.

Delete sentence. And sob.

But first? Copy and paste it into your “word dump” file. You do have one, don’t you? The place where you keep all those phrases that you love but can’t keep? You know, those babies? Because good writers don’t really kill their babies. No. They send them to a foster home in the hopes someday they’ll be adopted.

In the meantime, you will return to your work, cutting and pluming as if the piece is an unruly bush that needs trimming before the neighbor’s complain. Yes, there are mixed metaphors in my post. Another problem for writers.

This is why I am going to start up a new blog for those desperate to understand how to revise and trim. I call it “Revision 411,” and the link is here: http://revision411.wordpress.com/

I will have it up and running soon.

Help is here. And hopefully all your babies will be adopted soon.

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