December 20, 2009 by Greg Gerke
What was the most you ever revised a story, poem or essay that went on to be published? What did it look like to begin with? What did it become? How did you ‘see the light’ about where to take it?
Elizabeth Bishop conferring with cat on revisions to 'One Art.'
John Madera
John Dermot Woods
Ryan W. Bradley
Michael Leong
Greg Gerke
Stacy Muszynski
A D Jameson
Tim Jones-Yelvington
Rachel Swirsky
Edward Mullany
Aya Karpinska
Paul Kincaid
davis schneiderman
Amber Sparks
Tim Horvath
John Domini
Elaine Castillo
Curtis White
Paula Bomer
James Tadd Adcox
Nick Francis Potter
Brian Kubarycz
Gabriel Blackwell
Janey Smith
Matty Byloos
J/J Hastain
Greg Hunter
Jeff Bursey
Paul Griffin
Chris Lites
Ugh, my first published piece, a story about bees, is like the sixteenth draft. Does not at all resemble earlier versions. An excerpt from version thirteen or fourteen appeared in Quick Fiction. Version eight or nine, I think, will be in Drunken Boat. It’s interesting to see these side by side. Not one damn thing in common; the bees, in fact, began as moths. From first to final, as “Procession” became “The Professional Lover” and then became “The Bees,” well over two years in the making. Never want to see anything from any of that story ever, ever again. Ugh.
On the other hand, the earliest manifestation of WTMA (titled “Anatomy for the Artist”) will soon be up in Blossombones, and its final version is available now from MLP. Start to finish, earliest to final, six to eight months, maybe?
That’s crazy. All that from one? That’s a golden schlob of writing you had there.
Yeah, I tend to be about 10% write, 156.7999% revise, as a general rule of thumb.
I have a story called Down to Bone. In the first draft, the story was written in these small sections of 150-300 words and each section had it’s own title. I felt the story had potential but there was something not right with it so I used the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions and worked with Matt Bell who is a very smart, incisive editor. He had a lot of suggestions but they really worked to make the story work without changing my writing style which was great. It really took a detached, outside perspective to help me see what the story needed. I completely got rid of the titles, overhauled the organization of the story, removed instances of overwriting and on and on. The story was completely different. It will be appearing in the forthcoming 50th anniversary issue of Mid-American Review.
That’s great Roxane. A little help…
I’m a pretty obsessive rewriter, and I keep a pretty good record of the progress of any given piece because every time I sit down to work I save a new file with that day’s date. I have a story submitted to a magazine right now that I have 84 files for, suggesting approximately 84 drafts. I’ve sent it to exactly one magazine which I believe is the right one for the story, and I’ve waited eight months for a response… Soon, hopefully! I am learning patience as a writer, and it’s about time.
Roxane, I really enjoyed working on that story with you– It was already pretty fantastic when it came across my desk. I’m very glad everyone at MAR agreed. (Although: You will probably be in the 30th anniversary issue, not the 50th… unless Mike is holding it for 20 years…)
Hey Matt,
So do you wait until you have what you think is a complete story and then save a new file for each additional rewrite? Or do you literally save each story regardless of its status, its “completion”?
I save a new file at the beginning of each day’s writing (or sessions, if I wrote for a couple hours in the morning, then a couple at night). So maybe file #1 has 1000 words in it, and file #2 has 2000, or whatever. Then toward the end, each file represents a day’s worth of editing and rewriting and cutting and so on. Usually that means a couple hours of work, although obviously there’s an occasional day where the time spent and the changes made are smaller, and some where I write for hours and hours.
Toward the end, a whole day’s writing might just be reading the story or part of the story out loud over and over, trying to hear any false notes or new opportunities in the language. There the “text” might not change as much, but the day’s work might be just as hard. I’m sure everyone does these things, right?
Thanks for the clarification. Your process sounds similar to Samuel Delany’s. I think he talks about it in his book About Writing (one of very few useful texts I’ve found on writing).
I usually use “Track Changes” when I do a major rewrite and rarely save multiple versions. The versions I will save are a series of edits with an editor.
I think it would be useful for me to do what you do to get a sense of how many times I rewrite, which I’m both sure and happy to say is many times.
And yes, I’m constantly reading things out loud. It’s an essential part of revision for me.
I can’t remember who it was, but I once saw a renowned writer reading from a recently (at the time) published book who then stopped to revise a passage right there on the podium.
I don’t have much of a revising process though I am slowly trying to incorporate more of that into my writing. I do, however, also read things aloud. It is invaluable in terms of finding the right cadence for a story and getting a feel for how a story is working in ways that simply reading words on a page cannot quite approximate.
I’ve consistently read everything I’ve wrote out loud, including novels to people. That has been the most crucial editing. The thing is the other people have to be there. Alone it doesn’t work. My mind fires off all that is wrong and often I stop and start editing in the middle of the read, try to do it quickly so the listener won’t get bored.
Reading aloud while editing is a must for me. I find so many rhthym mistakes and better word choices when I read aloud–and cuts. I probably make the most cuts in my work when I read it aloud.
This will be especially necessary with my new project, which is going to be written in a pseudo-phonetic style representing a speech impediment.
I love Track Changes. I use that every day too– As soon as I save the new file, I accept all changes from the day before, and go back to it.
Interesting. I don’t think I ever use track changes for my creative work. I use it for my professional work all the time, but it’s always so someone else can see what I’ve done. I wonder if it would be helpful for me. Perhaps I’ll give it a try.
I just fear it would be like reading a book that’s been underlined and commented: a distraction from the language.
I think I need to work on a better tracking system for my editing. Right now, I use neither Track Changes nor new versions. (Lies: I do have some versioning of a few stories, but this isn’t the norm.)
Yeah, I think “draft” is here being given a fairly generous definition. To me, a draft establishes a point at which I can stand back and think, “This is done.” Often, after either spending some time away from the work or receiving new feedback on it from a third party, I will reconsider this stance, see that it indeed requires more work, and undertake to produce another draft.
All changes and re-savings between those times are simply different iterations of the same working draft.
Yeah, if I defined draft the way you do, I would only have one draft, ever. I never think “this is done” until it’s, you know, done. And even then.
The bigger point– “draft” is probably not the word I should have used, and you’re right, isn’t accurate. But I don’t really work in “drafts” the way you’re saying it either.
Well, perhaps I overstated my case. I suppose I mean “potentially done.” A draft is something you feel comfortable turning in to your editor.
But perhaps I’m in the minority, defining it this way.
Like, I turned in a draft of Flatmancrooked, and then received feedback on it, and spent three months on the next draft over the summer, and then received feedback on that, and spent another 6 or 7 weeks on another draft, which, for practical reasons, I call my “3rd draft.”
Really, though, I turned in an earlier draft of the book while at Brown, and with Evenson’s feedback, produced another draft. So, all said, I might say I’m on my 5th draft.
But if I counted up all the duplicate versions of the book I saved during those rewrites… I don’t know. There would be hundreds.
The first sentence, above, should begin: “I turned in a draft of Forecast to Flatmancrooked,”
Let’s count that as “Draft Two”…
See, I’d call it an iteration. :)
84! You are in Kubrick take land.
I wrote a ten page story about a man trapped in a giant eclair, but it wasn’t very interesting so I went Lish on its ass and turned it into a hundred-ish word micro that found its way into elimae. It hurts to make big cuts like that but it worked out in the end.
Ten pages cut to around a hundred words = now published in elimae. This is a beautiful thing.
I spent about a year writing the first draft of a novel, “Giant Slugs.” Out of its 20,000 or so words, only one small section has survived, also published in elimae:
http://elimae.com/fiction/Jameson/Ninjas.html
(Is elimae the burial ground for failed longer pieces?)
Later, in grad school, I wrote a completely different draft of “Giant Slugs,” keeping only one small part of the original premise. That ran to about 21,000 words as well.
Then, about two years later, I revised that version through two more complete drafts. A little while later, I received an offer to publish that version, but I didn’t accept it. (I felt it needed more work.)
I next moved to Chicago, where I spent two years revising that 24,000-word draft into a 100,000-word novel. About 5000 words survived from the third version into the finished thing. (Which is now finished, and will no longer be revised. It’s done!)
A small excerpt of the finished “Giant Slugs” appeared in elimae, bringing things full circle:
http://www.elimae.com/2008/November/Summit.html
(More is due out next year, at Action, Yes and elsewhere.)
…So, basically, I wrote three novels to write one novel. (The earlier versions were amusing, but not all that great.) This took me about four years, spread out over nine years or so.
But how else does one learn how to write a novel?
Wow, gosh Adam, “More About Ninjas” is fucking astonishing. (I’m saving the other story for later.)
I think if a novel stays in your head for that long, after so many deaths and rebirths, there has to be something huge lurking in there.
Thanks, Alec! That’s a nice thing to hear. The rest of that version of the novel wasn’t worth saving, unfortunately—and believe me, I’ve combed through it, looking for other salvageable bits.
“Giant Slugs” did turn out to be pretty huge—it’s long, at least. But I find that most of my projects linger and simmer for a long time. Two of the other novels that I’m working on, “Seattle” and “1=a,” were started over a decade ago. And have gone through many other iterations. Hopefully they’ll both be done next year—but I’ve said that before…
Thanks again for the kind words!
Perhaps you are willing to post a small portion (the first page) of your original and the link to elimae, This can then be included in the Norton Anthology of Flash Fiction which I guess will be edited by Scott G. and you.
[...] 21, 2009 by John Madera Matt Bell, writing a bit about his drafting process HERE, brought up that he rereads a lot when editing. I also do that. I don’t know of any essays [...]