I wrote something the other day, in the editing I took a word out, and in the comments after that same word was used to describe the essay. It made me think. The habit of overwriting robs the reader of the words they need to describe their reaction. In the editing of a novel that I wrote four years ago, I see that habit taking up valuable narrative space and I’ve been slashing and burning with all the confidence of four years later. Whole paragraphs cut; sentences disappeared. Do we need to know this now? I ask, and haven’t we already got the point of this? Because the reader will need words to talk about it. Some have to be left over for them. For every novel I have a folder marked spare words, and that’s what they are, the ones I couldn’t let go of completely, that I keep in case of an emergency that never comes because they know better than me that they are not needed. In the excitement of play there are so many to choose from and I want to use all of them now, this minute. There’s the sensation of getting every tin of beans and packet of rice out from the cupboard and throwing the whole lot in the pot as if we won’t have to eat tomorrow. Somewhere, too, it demonstrates a lack of faith in the reader. My favourite pieces of literary art are ones where not a word more could be removed, where every syllable is holding up a vital piece of story, like Clare Keegan’s Foster, when even the title is doing a singular, irreplaceable piece of heavy lifting. And it makes me think also of poets whose words don’t crowd the page, Sherman Alexie and A.Jay Adler, two I’ve been reading here lately, the delicacy of their words chosen to meet the essence they want to tell, because in poems there’s nowhere to hide. I sit here now in the silence of predawn, the cat asleep on the table and wait for the words to come, what do they want to say today, how do they want to say it, it’s a movement through me that’s inexplicable, a force that I live for, and in the editing I see the moments when I got in the way, doubted or wanted to offer every meal at once. And I know when it’s over from a feeling, a sensation in my body, stop now.
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I am often shocked, re-reading things even a few days after writing them, by how wordy and awkward my writing is. It’s upsetting. It hurts my sense of myself. But I still really enjoy writing itself. It’s one of the most pleasurable things I do.
So much to think about here... Thank you. Sometimes I over write and other times I under write. It is hard to gauge sometimes. Thank you for this post.