Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.
—Mark Twain
Here's where we start to make TUFD less U.
Take TUFD from yesterday.
Read it through your head. Feel it in your hands.
Start to help it become a better version of itself.
Revisiting a first draft to rework and rewrite it doesn't sound like much fun, does it? It sounds like drudgery. Tedium. Like alphabetizing canned goods.
But it's not really, because there's a kind of freedom in it.
You've already done the hard part of setting down the words. Now comes the easier (and less anxiety-inducing) part of distilling the text's essence—or, crossing out the wrong words and the unnecessary words, and subbing in better ones.
Revising is my favorite part of writing—because it's when we start to have some fun. To me, the first draft feels more like pure ball-and-chain hard work. The editing is where we get to make some merry.
I'm not talking here about having someone else edit your work, by the way. That comes later.
First, you need to take a first pass at editing and shaping your own work.
There are two approaches to self-editing:
I like to use both on the same piece: first, one … and then, the other.
Editing by chainsaw. First, ignore the grammar and specific words you've used. Focus on the bigger stuff.
You might've gotten bogged down by setting up an idea with too much introductory explanation instead of just getting right into it. (See Chapter 16.)
Did you? Remove that throat-clearing introductory text, whittle it down, or set it aside to use elsewhere.
What's a distraction? What's indulgent? What feels too precious, like you're trying too hard? Nurse … Scalpel! Cut it.*
Are the paragraphs more like Frankenparagraphs—made up of disconnected sentences bolted awkwardly together, creating a scary mess? The sentences should build on one another, furthering a single idea and creating a whole.
If you see a Parrot Sentence perched in your own paragraph: Cut it. Shoo it away. Be ruthless.
Don't be that person.
Think of the sentences in a paragraph as a conversation between an elderly, companionable couple. They don't talk over each other; they expand on what the other says.
Editing with surgical tools. Next, turn off the chainsaw. Pick up your surgical instruments.
Good transitions are like fine stitching: You don't see the transitions; they don't stop your eye. Instead, they stitch writing into a seamless whole. They improve the vibe and reader-friendliness of any work.
* * *
Did you notice that I just wrote 700 words on editing but didn't once mention grammar?
That's not because grammar isn't important. It is, as we'll talk about in Part II. But writers tend to equate editing with fixing the grammar, when it's so much more than that.
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