This week I began the final edit/proofread of my new novel, The Book of Zev, due out November 2014, with explicit instructions from my publishers that this is a proofread only (from my editor “You are a pro, yet you are a writer and so I must ask you to refrain from editing your book. You will be tempted. Fight the demon!”). All this discussion of rewriting/no more rewriting of my novel got me thinking on the topic – here are some quotes on rewriting from famous authors.
“There is no great writing, only great rewriting.”
– Justice Brandeis
“Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them.”
– Bill Cosby
“I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to get the first draft. I can write more quickly than I can read.”
– John Irving
“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
– Elmore Leonard, Newsweek, 1985
“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – wholeheartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
– Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, On the Art of Writing, 1916
“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
– Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory, 1966
“Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings)…I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: ‘Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.’”
– Stephen King, On Writing, 2000
My students who have written their work using my trademarked writing system have a relatively easy time doing their rewrite, because the modular nature of my writing system make it easy to move parts around. But even if you did not write using my System, you can now use the System to make your rewrite easier. Remember with rewriting as with all writing, “Don’t Get it Right! Get it Written!”
– Marilyn Horowitz
