So, I was doing housework and thinking about writing. I know this is a shock–yes, I actually do housework. Specifically, I was cleaning the floors.
Now, this is a multi-step process where the wood floors are concerned. I have dogs. They’re small, but they have a lot of hair. I swear, I could knit a puppy with the hair that I brush off my dogs. And in the winter, they track dried grass and dirt in from the backyard. So unless I stay on top of things, I get… well, not so much dust bunnies as dust dinosaurs hiding in corners and under the couch. I worry that some day they will become sentient and attack me in my sleep…
What does this have to do with writing? Someone once told me that revising a manuscript was like peeling an onion. I don’t remember her point exactly; it has to do with working in layers, and probably because it makes you cry.
But for me, the process is more like cleaning my floors.
First, I have to get the big stuff. The dust dinosaurs and the dried grass that accumulates against the floorboards. In a manuscript, these are things like plot inconsistencies, logic and pacing problems. They’re easy to see–impossible to hide, really. Even if you think you’ve swept them under the couch, they may drift back out to embarrass you when company comes over.
Next I get out the Swiffer for the smaller stuff that the broom leaves behind. This, in my manuscript, are where I tweak things, punch up the emotional highs and lows, smooth over rough and clunky spots, enrich characterization, excise clichés, and make sure every scene serves the story. I spend the most time on this go ‘round, and just like with the Swiffer, sometimes it takes going over things twice to make sure I get the corners and the cracks.
Last comes the mop. Depending on how well I did the clean up in the last round, sometimes I can go quickly here, picking up anything I missed, and making sure everything is smooth and glossy. This is where I tighten and clean up the prose, proofread for typos, and tweak the grammar.
Now, here’s the thing. No one has to eat off my floor. No one is going to be performing surgical procedures there, either. The dogs are going to track in grass the first time I let them out. There’s no such thing as a perfectly clean floor.
And a perfect manuscript is just as out of reach. In fact, if you obsess too much about mopping and scouring your work, then it becomes sterile, and you’ll buff all the life out of it.
In the end, that’s the trick with revising your manuscript–knowing when to let go. A manuscript needs to be clean and tight, but you don’t want to edit the life out of it, either. I always think when you reach the point where you’re just moving figurative furniture around, it’s time to pack it up and send it in.
And for the record, I’m WAY more OCD about my manuscripts than I am about my floors.
Friends of laps, bane of floors
