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In Which Dr. Pretentious Takes up the Axe
Feb. 9th, 2006 12:06 amBreva the Axe, the Barbarian Queen of Concision Revision, is the person who taught me how to knock huge numbers of words out of a draft by making tiny little cuts. She's got a good eye for lots of things, but she's always the first person I ask when I need to cull. When "Atlantis Cranks" was only about halfway done, I knew it started in the wrong place. She saw right away where the real beginning was. Three pages gone, right there.
At the moment, Breva the Axe is in Seattle on vacation, and one of these days some institution of higher learning will have the good sense to offer her a tenure track gig, and she'll move away, and then where will I be? I'll never be as good at baking, or as well versed in the Popol Vuh, or as patient with theories of postmodernity as she is. I'd better get as good at knocking words out of manuscripts, or serious trouble is in the offing.
It took me three days to do it, but I've cut the first complete draft of "Atlantis Cranks" down by more than 10%, to 25K even. The longest single cut: three sentences. Most of the cuts were just three or four words long. She'd have been faster. I'll get faster.
None of it felt like trimming fat. It felt more like exfoliating away scar tissue. Most of the words I cut were remnants of other sentences that didn't survive the production of the first draft. In a few dialogue tags, characters were agreeing with assertions that were no longer on the page anywhere, or doubting thoughts that nobody was thinking anymore, etc. Jane's still an abrasive personality, still judgmental, but kinder than I initially imagined her to be. Some of October's sentences understood the character badly.
Tomorrow, I'll see whether the remaining 90% still makes any sense. If it does, I'll proofread it backward to make sure I didn't introduce any new errors or miss any old ones. And then to the post office.
Tonight, I need to clear my own voice out of my head a little, to make those things possible. I think I'll settle down with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
newroticgirl's ms and give it the long second reading it deserves.
It'll be delightful to have finished something AND sent it out--lately, things are either sent OR finished, both of which conditions are, on their own, agonizing. And I'm looking forward to paying back my karmic debts a bit. I promised help with ritual texts to certain of you out there, and soon I'll be able to take a break from prose mind and slip into something more lyrical.
Speaking of karmic debts, Breva the Axe occasionally posts asmischievouspie.
At the moment, Breva the Axe is in Seattle on vacation, and one of these days some institution of higher learning will have the good sense to offer her a tenure track gig, and she'll move away, and then where will I be? I'll never be as good at baking, or as well versed in the Popol Vuh, or as patient with theories of postmodernity as she is. I'd better get as good at knocking words out of manuscripts, or serious trouble is in the offing.
It took me three days to do it, but I've cut the first complete draft of "Atlantis Cranks" down by more than 10%, to 25K even. The longest single cut: three sentences. Most of the cuts were just three or four words long. She'd have been faster. I'll get faster.
None of it felt like trimming fat. It felt more like exfoliating away scar tissue. Most of the words I cut were remnants of other sentences that didn't survive the production of the first draft. In a few dialogue tags, characters were agreeing with assertions that were no longer on the page anywhere, or doubting thoughts that nobody was thinking anymore, etc. Jane's still an abrasive personality, still judgmental, but kinder than I initially imagined her to be. Some of October's sentences understood the character badly.
Tomorrow, I'll see whether the remaining 90% still makes any sense. If it does, I'll proofread it backward to make sure I didn't introduce any new errors or miss any old ones. And then to the post office.
Tonight, I need to clear my own voice out of my head a little, to make those things possible. I think I'll settle down with
newroticgirl's ms and give it the long second reading it deserves.It'll be delightful to have finished something AND sent it out--lately, things are either sent OR finished, both of which conditions are, on their own, agonizing. And I'm looking forward to paying back my karmic debts a bit. I promised help with ritual texts to certain of you out there, and soon I'll be able to take a break from prose mind and slip into something more lyrical.
Speaking of karmic debts, Breva the Axe occasionally posts as
mischievouspie.
