I\u2019m never sure whether talking about this is inspiring or demoralizing, but I\u2019m hoping it\u2019s the former, not least because the reader in me feels like the world would be a better place if we were all willing to edit our writing a little more and a little deeper and a little better.<\/p>\n
In which pursuit, allow me to introduce my writing shoulder angel and my writing shoulder demon.<\/p>\n
My shoulder angel is like: I\u2019m really sorry, hon, but I think this scene\/character\/plot arc\/timeline\/motif-you\u2019ve-used-throughout-the-entire-goddamn-manuscipt has to go.<\/p>\n
My shoulder demon is like: Nah, girl, it\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n
Shoulder angel<\/strong>: It\u2019s fine, yes, but not as good as it could be. So you should make it better.<\/p>\n Shoulder demon<\/strong>: But it\u2019s so pretty. And clever. (And so, by extension, are you.)<\/p>\n Shoulder angel<\/strong>: It is pretty and clever, but it\u2019s not buying you enough. You need to tighten what\u2019s loose, propel what drags, punch up what\u2019s cliche, drive home your points, make more connections. And lose the flab.<\/p>\n Shoulder demon<\/strong>: But it\u2019s load bearing. If you get rid of it, it breaks things throughout the entire draft. You\u2019ll have to change a zillion details. You\u2019ll never find them all.<\/p>\n Shoulder angel<\/strong>: You will find them all. You will find them when you edit this manuscript several dozen (hundred) more times.<\/p>\n Shoulder demon<\/strong>: [whining] But it\u2019s soooo hard and I don\u2019t wannaaaa.<\/p>\n Shoulder angel<\/strong>: [kind but firm] It won\u2019t be as hard as you think. So just do it.<\/p>\n Demon<\/strong>: Do you ever shut up?<\/p>\n Angel<\/strong>: Yes, sometime after second pass.<\/p>\n The trick is they\u2019re both right. When my demon gets all worked up about how hard it will be to make big changes, changes like cutting a timeline, or shifting from first-person to third, or taking these seven characters and combining them into one, or throwing out the first third of the book and drafting it from scratch, she\u2019s right that that will be a lot of work, that it will take a long time. Edits at that level break a lot of things that were working great and will now need to be fixed. It will be hard in many ways.<\/p>\n But the hardest way of all, harder than the work itself, is convincing myself to undertake it.<\/p>\n One reason is that my shoulder demon is a writer and imagines stuff for a living. Of course she anticipates suffering and tears and teeth-gnashing without end. She\u2019s hyperbolic by nature. Almost nothing is as bad as she thinks it will be.<\/p>\n Another reason is my shoulder demon is a holdover from a bygone era. Revisions aren\u2019t scratched by hand anymore on paper that cost more than your best laying hen with pen and ink you had to make yourself. They aren\u2019t pecked out on a typewriter such that your edits are limited by the amount of correction tape left on the roll and have to be exactly as long as whatever you\u2019re replacing. Honestly, I look back at even pre-laptop word processing and shake my head in smug wonder: How did anyone ever manage to write a whole book on a desktop computer?<\/p>\n So sometimes I think our resistance to big revisions is vestigial, a ghost from a time when such overhaul really was unbearably difficult, a lag between our artistic souls and our technology. Sometimes my shoulder angel looks at my shoulder demon and advises, witheringly, “Evolve.”<\/p>\n We like to think of evolution happening in great leaps forward, at least sometimes, but much more often it\u2019s slow, discrete steps, overwhelming, impossible even, in the aggregate but eminently doable one at a time. So I propose to you evolving your project rather than revising it. I have learned, time and again, that no matter how large and daunting and destructive the proposed revisions, once undertaken, one by one by one, they\u2019re never as big as they seem.<\/p>\n In this way, I find revision to be a lot like exercise. (If you\u2019re one of those people who gets high on endorphins, congratulations, and this is not the metaphor for you.) I always find in hindsight that that which was sweaty and unpleasant and probably not making me healthier anyway was not, however, as painful as I thought it would be. Sometimes, it even feels good.<\/p>\nSo this is my remit and my plea and, honestly, my best offer. I make it to myself and to you and to all our shoulder demons: Don\u2019t fear the overhaul.<\/span>\n Maybe I was wrong at the beginning when I said don\u2019t let anyone see your novel being made. Maybe the making\u2014all the painful, flailing, heart sinking, head banging, laborious, meandering working and reworking\u2014should be on full display. I don\u2019t know that anyone still buys the myth (fantasy?) that novels emerge whole and brilliant and only a light copyedit stands between first draft and bookstore.<\/p>\n What I think we haven\u2019t quite shed though is the unfortunate conviction that good enough is good enough, that fine is just fine, and it\u2019s not, especially not now. If the book can be better, let\u2019s do the (admittedly hard) work to make it better.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s what I\u2019ve got. I can\u2019t tell you it won\u2019t be a lot of work, but I can tell you it won\u2019t be as much work as you think. I can\u2019t tell you it won\u2019t take a long time, but I can tell you it will take less time than you imagine. I can\u2019t promise that you\u2019ll enjoy it while it\u2019s happening\u2014that throwing out hard earned, well loved, beautifully crafted words and timelines and characters and arcs will feel good\u2014but I can tell you that that\u2019s where the magic happens and that later, when the book is better, it doesn\u2019t feel just good. It feels transcendent.<\/p>\n So this is my remit and my plea and, honestly, my best offer. I make it to myself and to you and to all our shoulder demons: Don\u2019t fear the overhaul. Make your just fine writing better. Heed your shoulder angels for they are not only right but righter.<\/p>\n ______________________________<\/p>\n![\"Family](\"https:\/\/images-us.bookshop.org\/ingram\/9781250236807.jpg?height=500&v=v2-771aff5059ddae67b42278186ae59890\")
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