Trimming the Fat

Part of the process of growing as a writer is recognizing that writing is so much more than putting words on the page--it's also knowing when and where to take words off the page.

This past week, I executed what my agent calls a selective edit. This was a process of combing through my manuscript and cutting several thousand words to bring it down to a particular length. I was looking for superfluous words, redundant dialogue, unnecessary descriptions--that sort of stuff. Now that I have been writing professionally for eight-nine years, I actually relish this sort of activity, but Young Author Me would have cried bitter tears over it.

​Part of the process of growing as a writer is recognizing that writing is so much more than putting words on the page--it's also knowing when and where to take words off the page.

I think creative writing is such a curious discipline for several reasons, but one of them is because it's a type of creative art where the Creative starts off believing they are experts at what they are doing. Speaking generally, creative writers tend to be resistant to instruction--resistant to being edited, resistant to being told what to do.

Birth metaphors are frequently used for the process of producing books (we "birth book babies," as though they are products of our life and blood rather than subcreations of our psyche). Our stories are deeply personal, and this makes any suggestion that we need to change our mode (our words) personal, as well.

Whereas I think people in other disciplines tend to recognize their ignorance and start off more malleable, creative writers often start off rigid and only become more malleable with maturity and time. That's certainly been my personal experience as a writer, at least, and my observations of my creative writing students over ten years teaching creative writing have reinforced this opinion. 

And I will say that I've never been one to write an initial rough draft that I junk entirely, but all writers have to be willing to hold their drafts in an open hand. Unless you self-publish and control every aspect of the process from beginning to end, your story ceases to belong solely to you the moment you sign with an agent, a publisher, an editor, a publicist.

​Your manuscripts will go through many revisions--many, many, many revisions--before they are ready for publication. If your words are so precious to you that you can't trim the fat--recognize and get rid of those unnecessary words and story elements--where necessary, then you have a lot of growth to go through as a writer (and you may be a little insufferable to work with). 

Editing is difficult. It is--whether you're editing your own work, or someone else is editing it for you. I'm not trying to say that you will (or should) always feel great about it. But I will encourage you to always enter into the editing process with an open mind and an eye to recognizing that editing is not about butchering your "book baby" or compromising your vision, but it's about clarifying your story, highlighting the very best of your words, and getting rid of the dross. In order to do that, though, you have to be willing to trim that fat!