Famous Writers on Revision

You’ve dumped the clay on the table. You’ve sculpted it into a story, an essay, a memoir. You’ve reconsidered it and reworked it. You’re happy with it! Now it’s time to revise. We’ve all got to get through the next step, and I’ve collected some advice from writers who know a thing or two about revision.

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”

  ~Stephen King

“Write toward clarity and revise toward strangeness.    

~David Starkey

“Cut the adjectives unless you absolutely have to have them. Make sure the verbs are the very best ones you can find. Make them forceful. Make them direct. Make them to the point.”                      

~Charles Baxter

“The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.”

~ Zadie Smith

“What the honest writer does, when she’s finished a rough draft, is go over it and over it, time after time, refusing to let anything stay if it looks awkward, phony, or forced.”

~John Gardner

“Rewriting is the essence of writing…Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything that you can throw away. Re-examine each sentence that you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is there anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it’s beautiful? Simplify. Simplify.”

~William Zinsser

“To me, the most important question to ask as I revise is: Am I bored here? The best “advice” I’ve ever heard on revision was from the wonderful teacher and writer Margot Livesey. It was something like this: if you are bored, it’s not because you’ve read that section so many times, it’s because it’s boring.”

~ Matthew Salesses

 “I’d say I spend ninety percent of my time in revision.”

~ Jorie Graham

“That’s the magic of revisions – every cut is necessary, and every cut hurts, but something new always grows.”

~Kelly Barnhill

“Given the initial talent … writing is largely a matter of application and hard work, of writing and rewriting endlessly, until you are satisfied that you have said what you want to say as clearly and simply as possible. For me, that usually means many, many revisions.”

~Rachel Carson

“If I feel a section is limp, I take a couple of days and just do dictionary work and recast the sentences so that they have more power because their words aren’t overused.”

~Annie Proulx