Write With RCS: Peter Elbow and editing. We'll say good bye to Peter soon.
From some old notes of mine from a book by Peter Elbow about learning to write without teachers I am rediscovering that he seems to be a very good teacher and writer. I am learning from these old notes. Maybe you can learn from them too. I intend to publish some posts dealing with them. This particular post is about editing one's writing.
Mr. Elbow's book was published by Oxford University Press in the early 1970s. It is entitled: Writing Without Teachers. You may want to find a copy for yourself.
From my earlier reading and from my present notes I have come so familiar with Peter Elbow I feel I can call him Peter.
According to Peter, you may come to a point when you say, "I see what I have been driving at; I see what I have been stumbling around trying to say."
When you agree with Elbow, ah, Peter, that editing means figuring out what you really want to say, getting it clear in your head, getting it unified into an organized structure, and then getting it into your best words, and throwing away the rest; at that point you are ready for some editing That seems a bit much and not completely clear. Maybe you ought to read Peter's book.
Time to struggle for the exact phrase, cut out he dead wood. If you find yourself in trouble, it may finally be time to write out an outline.
A useful outline is a list of full assertions - one for each paragraph. Assertions are complete sentences pointing to a real configuration. The list of assertions logically progress to a single assertion. Having done this you have worked your way up to a point at which you can work down through your editing
I intend that there be more coming.
Here it is:
More About Editing Your Writing
You can't edit your writing, says Peter, until you you can say, " What the hell, there is more where that comes from. Easy come, easy go." "Be a big spender not a tight-ass."
You might find yourself regressing. Enjoy it and learn. You may have to revisit earlier difficulties. You may have yet to really inhibit fully your difficulties of producing. You may be doing things like trying to recombine words so as not to have to throw them away.
Throw them away ruthlessly; you will learn to generate more prolifically.
If you find yourself spending a lot of time on introductions and transitions you had best reexamine relationships.
Cut a word and keep a reader. Peter suggests that you play sculpture pulling off layers with chisel to reveal a figure beneath. Leaving things out can make the backbone or structure show better.
Editing is being tough enough to make sure that someone actually reads your work.
In Peter's own words, "To write ten pages and throw them away, but end up with one paragraph that someone actually reads---one paragraph that is actually worth sixty seconds of read time---is huge, magical, and efficient process.
Let me know if you find Peter's book available.
by Richard Sheehan