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A review by eowyns_helmet
The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House by Kate Bernheimer, Dorothy Allison, Aimee Bender
5.0
There are some very good pieces in this book -- Steve Almond's essay on writing sex scenes is excellent (it's not about the sex, but character, of course). The brief piece on the revisions behind [b:The Great Gatsby|4671|The Great Gatsby|F. Scott Fitzgerald|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361191055s/4671.jpg|245494] was fascinating -- and comforting. Even Fitzgerald didn't get it the first time. He took the editorial comments made by Maxwell Perkins very seriously and generously, looking for the meaning in them rather than resisting them.
Some nuggets:
In "Making a Scene," Anna Keesey quotes Marilyn Robinson saying, "the reader is patient, ... is you're showing something that is of significance and if your prose is good and if there are no missteps or squanderings of the reader's attention, then the reader will follow you anywhere."
Well, that's a lot of IFs! But I get it...
Chris Offutt writes about the difference between "polishing" and revising -- and I am guilty, guilty, guilty of the former and not so hot at the latter... I will hone a sentence until it absolutely gleams, not seeing the weakness all around it. This piece is the best in the book. "Revising requires a cruel and ruthless objectivity with which you essentially perform surgery on yourself without anesthesia" (207).
For Offutt, the first draft is pure vulnerability, which (hopefully) translates into what he calls "reader empathy." And that is not the space to be in to revise. The transition between the two is time -- letting that first draft sit. "Try to see what the story is, rather than what you are trying to force it into. If you've done that first draft successfully, you've tapped into your intuition, your impulses, your unconscious, your problems of the day, whatever emotional state you are in... [for revision] you need to forget what it is you've tried to do, look at the story, see what it has become, and begin to attempt to fix it, to revise it, to improve it" (209).
Offutt always cuts off the opening and closing of the first draft, since the story is usually starting later and ending sooner. He also keeps every draft separate (!) so that he can go back and see what he did (I would find this completely impossible). He is fearless -- switching scenes, combining characters, hatcheting exposition. But the polishing -- repeated words, punctuation etc. -- is the last thing to be done...
Another good quote. "Adverbs are the weakest words; verbs are the strongest. Many, many times I've found that I have the wrong verb so I'm attempting to cheat and modify the wrong verb by using an adverb" (212). Wiush it was shorter so I could put it on a tshirt.
Peter Rock also had a good quote from Julio Cortazar, quoting Hector Quiroga: "Tell the story as if it were only of interest to the small circle of your characters, of which you may be one. There is no other way to put life into the story."
In this exploration of show vs. tell, Rock goes on to say this. "Telling in stories often attempts to simplify, to clarify, but when it's really working, telling complicates and adds dimension to the experience of the story. It interprets situations and characters, and it invites us to do the same. It involves us" (239).
Some nuggets:
In "Making a Scene," Anna Keesey quotes Marilyn Robinson saying, "the reader is patient, ... is you're showing something that is of significance and if your prose is good and if there are no missteps or squanderings of the reader's attention, then the reader will follow you anywhere."
Well, that's a lot of IFs! But I get it...
Chris Offutt writes about the difference between "polishing" and revising -- and I am guilty, guilty, guilty of the former and not so hot at the latter... I will hone a sentence until it absolutely gleams, not seeing the weakness all around it. This piece is the best in the book. "Revising requires a cruel and ruthless objectivity with which you essentially perform surgery on yourself without anesthesia" (207).
For Offutt, the first draft is pure vulnerability, which (hopefully) translates into what he calls "reader empathy." And that is not the space to be in to revise. The transition between the two is time -- letting that first draft sit. "Try to see what the story is, rather than what you are trying to force it into. If you've done that first draft successfully, you've tapped into your intuition, your impulses, your unconscious, your problems of the day, whatever emotional state you are in... [for revision] you need to forget what it is you've tried to do, look at the story, see what it has become, and begin to attempt to fix it, to revise it, to improve it" (209).
Offutt always cuts off the opening and closing of the first draft, since the story is usually starting later and ending sooner. He also keeps every draft separate (!) so that he can go back and see what he did (I would find this completely impossible). He is fearless -- switching scenes, combining characters, hatcheting exposition. But the polishing -- repeated words, punctuation etc. -- is the last thing to be done...
Another good quote. "Adverbs are the weakest words; verbs are the strongest. Many, many times I've found that I have the wrong verb so I'm attempting to cheat and modify the wrong verb by using an adverb" (212). Wiush it was shorter so I could put it on a tshirt.
Peter Rock also had a good quote from Julio Cortazar, quoting Hector Quiroga: "Tell the story as if it were only of interest to the small circle of your characters, of which you may be one. There is no other way to put life into the story."
In this exploration of show vs. tell, Rock goes on to say this. "Telling in stories often attempts to simplify, to clarify, but when it's really working, telling complicates and adds dimension to the experience of the story. It interprets situations and characters, and it invites us to do the same. It involves us" (239).