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7.
AOTW: One of the many nuggets of advice contained in On Writing
is to do a first draft, put the bad boy in a drawer for six weeks,
and then take it out and read it again. King notes, however, that
this method, while it works for him is not universal; some authors
write and revise a page until it is right, then proceed to the next
page, and so on. What do you do?
Laurie
Halse Anderson: I am the most impatient writer ever. I have
been known to skip letters and entire words in my haste to get to
the end of th lne, th pag, th chptr. This may account for my spelling
problems. I need to get it DONE. It's like running. When I train
for races, I can't increase by a quarter mile a week --- I up the
mileage a mile a day. This may account for my knee problems, but
that is another story. So I try to write the first draft without
looking back. At the end, I know it is a piece of crap. I start
scanning the want ads for a paying job. After a month of this (complete
with much hair-pulling, teeth-grinding, and whining), I take out
the first draft and read it. If I chuckle a few times, feel a lump
in my throat, I start revising. Several revisions later, it is ready
to share with the world.
Jonathan
Kellerman: I begin each day by rewriting yesterday's five pages.
This serves a dual purpose: (A) It improves narrative flow by allowing
me to segue into the new stuff and to create a manuscript that stands
as a coherent 500 page unit, rather than a choppy collection of
5 page segments. And (B) It leads to more polished writing. I also
stop every 100 pages or so and rewrite everything up to that point.
Then I finish and rewrite the whole book, sometimes more than once.
I'm a perfectionist and it's not unusual for me to revise through
galleys.
Noreen
Ayres: King is smart. If you can bear --- or afford --- to do
what he advises, do it. I buff the writing as I go along, but that's
probably not the best way. It's best to maybe read it through quickly
the next day to get your bearings, then move on. For me, by the
time the manuscript is ready to send out, each page has probably
been gone over four or five times.
Jeffery
Deaver: Superb advice. When you, the author, live with the book
for months, if not years, you exist in its world and among its characters;
what's clear to you could be cryptic to your readers, what shines
as brilliant prose could clink like lead in their ears. My editors
live in fear of sending me page proofs of my books because, having
not seen the book for a month or so, I'll read it anew with fresh
eyes and want to make revisions.
Brad
Meltzer: I write the page as it comes to me, the next morning
I read it over as quickly as possible editing just the big stuff
not the small stuff so I don't lose momentum. Then when I'm done
with the whole draft I go back to the start and begin again and
keep going in a circle that I get enough drafts that I'm comfortable
with it. The average book for me takes about five or six drafts.
Daniel
Handler: I've always been suspicious of those people who say
that they revise each page until it is perfect, and then move on.
Does it never occur to them that something they wrote fifty pages
back needs some work? Like Mr. King I write a draft, put it aside
for a bit, and look at it again. When I put it aside, I do something
I learned from Lois Lowry and keep the draft in the crisper drawer
of the refrigerator so it won't be destroyed if the house burns
down.
Lisa
Scottoline: I'm like King; I gut out the first draft and resist
the temptation to go back and revise as I go. It's too important
to find out how the story ends to start tweaking on the way. It's
also so difficult to do the first draft that if I can't give myself
the excuse to play around and edit. Editing is the treat only after
the first draft is finished.
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