"You can't go wrong throwing away, there's much to be said for throwing away. You will lose only what you do not need, only what will poison your writing by holding on to it, and you will gain power, focus, control and confidence, to name a few." -Gordon Lish
I don’t keep every draft but I’m going to start using one doc for every draft. Just in case. I think heavy cuts are great, but, honestly, when I hesitate to cut a particular passage, I know it’s probably the one that most needs to go. I’m always asking myself why this particular sentence needs to stay. Sometimes they’re just in the wrong spot. Sometimes the sentence is just showing me something I need to remember as I write. Once the draft is done, I can strike it.
I keep all of my drafts and revisions as I don't believe that there are any wasted words. I have discovered wonderful threads to pull on from unpolished or discarded drafts that end up becoming something else. Something new. That said, I don't think we should hold previous drafts or words in our fists, but rather let the words sift through our fingers like grains of sand - over and over again - noticing how they fall, the random patterns they make, the way they refract the light. Don't throw away - be willing to let go.
Is there such a thing as a draft hoarder? That'd be me. I spent the morning revising something I'd written in 2015 with multiple versions saved in 2016, 2017, and 2021. Keep trying to get it right. But the weird thing? I rarely go back to look at those earlier versions, just forge ahead with the most current revision. Now you've got me thinking -- so why do I keep them? I do this thing once something is published -- go back to review how much it changed from version to version to final version. It's been informative. Sometimes subtle changes. Sometimes huge rip-the-guts-out changes. I'm hoping to learn how to revise so I can pass through those stages more swiftly.
I keep almost every draft and every story. Thanks to the Cloud they don't take up a lot of space. I think this is a highly personal decision. For me, in the age of electronics I'm reluctant to throw things away, because once you do they're gone forever. I'm like that with physical letters and cards I receive too. If they have emotional value for me, I'll keep them. Not sayin' it's a good habit. It's just what I do.
Hmm! I wondered if this meant throwing away along-the-way chaff, like versions, drafts, and false starts for pieces. Or, I wonder, does this mean "murder your darlings," pare down the style, and remove things that interfere with a more direct style of writing? In both cases, I agree!—but I don't eagerly practice what I preach.
It's hard for me to discard texts; I tend to overvalue them or want to hold on to them as a window into the person I was at the time of writing them. However, I rarely end up using hoarded texts later on. (I recently found a good use for very old writing, though: I was teaching a workshop, and I wanted a good example of bad writing, one that wouldn't offend anyone. The perfect text for this was my own writing from 30 years ago, a novel I wrote as a teenager. Nobody was offended!)
With regard to the second point, it's hard for me to really (really) chop things off from a written piece, especially if the editing is close in time to the writing and also especially if the editing scalpel has become dull from editing the piece for a long time. The passage of time, the need to reduce the word count, or someone else's opinion—now those are really useful ways to heed Lish's advice.
I hold onto drafts and revisions and sometimes to chunks thrown out. I'm struggling with a longer piece right now and cut out a lot of stuff [backstory told by char #2] and then thought, the remainder may not convey what i want, and I value char #2. so now I'm thinking of a piece with three voices interspersed. OTOH, I keep in mind, what would Lish do? Tightening, cutting down, removing repetitions is always good. I think too of how Abigail Thomas' work is often most powerful when it's very spare.
Dec 20, 2023·edited Dec 20, 2023Liked by Meg Pokrass
Raymond Carver's "A Small, Good Thing" is a great, great story., whose arc of tragedy, loss, empathy, and redemption was lost when Lish threw away much of it, turning it into "The Bath." I'm glad he published Carver's work, but he left his own fingerprints all over it, to its detriment.
I think you can privilege power and control over a sort of surrender to what feels indelibly right to you, if you focus too much on throwing away.
I used to keep my old drafts of pieces on the computer, but then it got too overwhelming. I stopped and I lived to tell the tale. I do keep paper copies of some stapled behind the revised draft, but once the revised one is published I get rid of the drafts.
I don’t keep every draft but I’m going to start using one doc for every draft. Just in case. I think heavy cuts are great, but, honestly, when I hesitate to cut a particular passage, I know it’s probably the one that most needs to go. I’m always asking myself why this particular sentence needs to stay. Sometimes they’re just in the wrong spot. Sometimes the sentence is just showing me something I need to remember as I write. Once the draft is done, I can strike it.
I keep all of my drafts and revisions as I don't believe that there are any wasted words. I have discovered wonderful threads to pull on from unpolished or discarded drafts that end up becoming something else. Something new. That said, I don't think we should hold previous drafts or words in our fists, but rather let the words sift through our fingers like grains of sand - over and over again - noticing how they fall, the random patterns they make, the way they refract the light. Don't throw away - be willing to let go.
by default I'm wired to hold-on but resonate with the lightness of letting go.
Is there such a thing as a draft hoarder? That'd be me. I spent the morning revising something I'd written in 2015 with multiple versions saved in 2016, 2017, and 2021. Keep trying to get it right. But the weird thing? I rarely go back to look at those earlier versions, just forge ahead with the most current revision. Now you've got me thinking -- so why do I keep them? I do this thing once something is published -- go back to review how much it changed from version to version to final version. It's been informative. Sometimes subtle changes. Sometimes huge rip-the-guts-out changes. I'm hoping to learn how to revise so I can pass through those stages more swiftly.
I keep almost every draft and every story. Thanks to the Cloud they don't take up a lot of space. I think this is a highly personal decision. For me, in the age of electronics I'm reluctant to throw things away, because once you do they're gone forever. I'm like that with physical letters and cards I receive too. If they have emotional value for me, I'll keep them. Not sayin' it's a good habit. It's just what I do.
He wrote some of the most annoying rejections I ever got.
Hmm! I wondered if this meant throwing away along-the-way chaff, like versions, drafts, and false starts for pieces. Or, I wonder, does this mean "murder your darlings," pare down the style, and remove things that interfere with a more direct style of writing? In both cases, I agree!—but I don't eagerly practice what I preach.
It's hard for me to discard texts; I tend to overvalue them or want to hold on to them as a window into the person I was at the time of writing them. However, I rarely end up using hoarded texts later on. (I recently found a good use for very old writing, though: I was teaching a workshop, and I wanted a good example of bad writing, one that wouldn't offend anyone. The perfect text for this was my own writing from 30 years ago, a novel I wrote as a teenager. Nobody was offended!)
With regard to the second point, it's hard for me to really (really) chop things off from a written piece, especially if the editing is close in time to the writing and also especially if the editing scalpel has become dull from editing the piece for a long time. The passage of time, the need to reduce the word count, or someone else's opinion—now those are really useful ways to heed Lish's advice.
I hold onto drafts and revisions and sometimes to chunks thrown out. I'm struggling with a longer piece right now and cut out a lot of stuff [backstory told by char #2] and then thought, the remainder may not convey what i want, and I value char #2. so now I'm thinking of a piece with three voices interspersed. OTOH, I keep in mind, what would Lish do? Tightening, cutting down, removing repetitions is always good. I think too of how Abigail Thomas' work is often most powerful when it's very spare.
Raymond Carver's "A Small, Good Thing" is a great, great story., whose arc of tragedy, loss, empathy, and redemption was lost when Lish threw away much of it, turning it into "The Bath." I'm glad he published Carver's work, but he left his own fingerprints all over it, to its detriment.
I think you can privilege power and control over a sort of surrender to what feels indelibly right to you, if you focus too much on throwing away.
I used to keep my old drafts of pieces on the computer, but then it got too overwhelming. I stopped and I lived to tell the tale. I do keep paper copies of some stapled behind the revised draft, but once the revised one is published I get rid of the drafts.