I\u2019m in the mid\u00addle of pol\u00adish\u00ading my lat\u00adest nov\u00adel, and because I find the process so oner\u00adous, I\u2019ve decid\u00aded to take a break from it and write about it instead.<\/p>\n
Pol\u00adish\u00ading should in no way be con\u00adfused with edit\u00ading. When you edit, in addi\u00adtion to mov\u00ading pas\u00adsages around and try\u00ading dif\u00adfer\u00adent ways of say\u00ading the same line, what you\u2019re real\u00adly look\u00ading for are oppor\u00adtu\u00adni\u00adties to cut words. Once you\u2019re able to do what William Faulkn\u00ader said (\u201ckill your darlings\u201d\u2014those pre\u00adcious pet phras\u00ades that don\u2019t add to your sto\u00adry), you begin to look for\u00adward to hack\u00ading out large chunks of mate\u00adr\u00adi\u00adal. Adjec\u00adtives, sen\u00adtences, para\u00adgraphs, scenes, and some\u00adtimes whole chap\u00adters can be yanked and you don\u2019t notice. In fact, the work gets bet\u00adter through omis\u00adsion. You\u2019re chip\u00adping away every\u00adthing that does\u00adn\u2019t resem\u00adble an ele\u00adphant. That\u2019s edit\u00ading.<\/p>\n
But pol\u00adish\u00ading is dif\u00adfer\u00adent, and in many ways more dif\u00adfi\u00adcult. A pain in the ass, actu\u00adal\u00adly. It reminds me of some\u00adthing the inim\u00aditable Oscar Wilde once said:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI was work\u00ading on the proof of one of my poems all the morn\u00ading, and took out a com\u00adma. In the after\u00adnoon I put it back again.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a Yoda writer yet, but back when I was still a Padouin Learn\u00ader, I thought the above quote was ridicu\u00adlous. Some\u00adone could\u00adn\u2019t pos\u00adsi\u00adbly<\/em> have spent that much time debat\u00ading the mer\u00adits of insert\u00ading or omit\u00adting a piece of punc\u00adtu\u00ada\u00adtion. Come on. The fact is, I did\u00adn\u2019t know enough about writ\u00ading yet to under\u00adstand how true it was.<\/p>\n
In the ear\u00adly stages of writ\u00ading a book, like a bur\u00adgeon\u00ading romance every\u00adthing is beau\u00adti\u00adful and full of poten\u00adtial. You\u2019re enrap\u00adtured by the Idea. The char\u00adac\u00adters pul\u00adsate with ener\u00adgy. The pos\u00adsi\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adties are end\u00adless. Then you write a draft. And anoth\u00ader draft. And anoth\u00ader draft. And each time you cre\u00adate a mod\u00adi\u00adfied ver\u00adsion of the Idea, you deface the Idea a lit\u00adtle bit, until you reach a point where you real\u00adize your cre\u00adation will nev\u00ader match up with the Idea, and that the best you can hope to do is present your sul\u00adlied thing in the best light pos\u00adsi\u00adble.<\/p>\n
By the time you reach the pol\u00adish\u00ading stage, you\u2019re sick of the book. But you have to read it one more time\u2014at least. You lit\u00ader\u00adal\u00adly get nau\u00adseous. The process is made even more poignant because you know you\u2019re going to have to face all of the imper\u00adfec\u00adtions and fail\u00adures that, at your cur\u00adrent state of writer\u00adly devel\u00adop\u00adment, you are unable to fix. The feel\u00ading you get is, I imag\u00adine, a lot like the feel\u00ading a divorced per\u00adson gets when forced to see his\/her ex-spouse at child vis\u00adi\u00adta\u00adtions.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, I\u2019m sor\u00adry. I did the best I could. Why are you bring\u00ading that up again? We\u2019ve gone over this. What do you want from me? I said I was sor\u00adry. Good\u00adbye.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
If your sto\u00adry is tight and fair\u00adly well-told, by the time you get to pol\u00adish\u00ading, you know you can\u2019t rad\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly improve it. You know that no mat\u00adter how nice\u00adly you buff the suck\u00ader, it\u2019s only going to gleam so much. And if it\u2019s a turd, well, for\u00adget it. A turd pol\u00adished is still a turd.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the things I focus on dur\u00ading pol\u00adish\u00ading. I call this my Hunt\u00ading List:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\n
- Remov\u00ading every unnec\u00ades\u00adsary adverb, which means
vir\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly<\/del> all of them.<\/li>\n- Remov\u00ading unnec\u00ades\u00adsary com\u00admas to increase read\u00ading speed, or putting some in (see above) for clar\u00adi\u00adty.<\/li>\n
- Remov\u00ading extra\u00adne\u00adous dash\u00ades and semi\u00adcolons.<\/li>\n
- Chang\u00ading verbs from past pro\u00adgres\u00adsives (e.g., \u201cwas run\u00adning\u201d) to sim\u00adple past tense (e.g., \u201cran\u201d).<\/li>\n
- Elim\u00adi\u00adnat\u00ading small, extra\u00adne\u00adous \u201cword pack\u00adages,\u201d which often start with prepo\u00adsi\u00adtions.<\/li>\n
- Elim\u00adi\u00adnat\u00ading as many attri\u00adbu\u00adtions (i.e., he said.) as pos\u00adsi\u00adble, but not to the point where it\u2019s ever unclear who is speak\u00ading.<\/li>\n
- Sub\u00adsti\u00adtut\u00ading more pic\u00adturesque verbs and spe\u00adcif\u00adic nouns for the lamer ones on the page.<\/li>\n
- Clar\u00adi\u00adfy\u00ading any\u00adthing con\u00adfus\u00ading and \u201cplant\u00adi\u00adng\u201d infor\u00adma\u00adtion that becomes impor\u00adtant lat\u00ader in the sto\u00adry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I read some\u00adwhere that every book teach\u00ades the writer what he needs to learn to tell that sto\u00adry, but one thing I\u2019ve found is that pol\u00adish\u00ading nev\u00ader gets any eas\u00adi\u00ader.<\/p>\n
Some of you may be read\u00ading this and say\u00ading, \u201cQuit your whin\u00ading. At least you\u2019re work\u00ading on a fin\u00adished book.\u201d And you\u2019d be right.<\/p>\n
But this still does\u00adn\u2019t change the fact that what I\u2019d rather be doing is star\u00ading at a New Idea. A New Idea, stand\u00ading on a hill in the spring sun\u00adshine, the sweet nec\u00adtary breeze blow\u00ading her gin\u00adger hair around. She waves to me. The breeze flaps her sun\u00address. She laughs, beck\u00adons me with a fin\u00adger and departs over the hill. I\u2019m about to run after her when I hear Old Idea, my bat\u00adtle axe of a book, screech\u00ading at me to come back down and clean the gut\u00adters.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m feel\u00ading ill again. Must be pol\u00adish\u00ading time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m in the mid\u00addle of pol\u00adish\u00ading my lat\u00adest nov\u00adel, and because I find the process so oner\u00adous, I\u2019ve decid\u00aded to take a break from it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5118,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/5118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}