The email from my agent was tactfully worded. She didn’t say there was something wrong with my novel. She didn’t say it was flawed. She didn’t even say it needed revisions. She asked a question: Would I be willing to discuss making some changes?
She’d been pitching the book for a few months by then without getting the responses we’d both expected. She was pretty sure the problem was with the first few chapters. If I wanted to get the work into print, I was going to have to do a little tweaking—and lot of deleting.
Perhaps there was a time when I would have been insulted. Maybe, years ago, I would have read my agent’s question as an intrusion into my artistic vision. Maybe it would have hurt my feelings. But, if that were ever true, it is long in my past.
Instead of being annoyed or hurt, I instantly sent a reply: I would be happy to make changes. I contacted the free-lance editor I work with to see if she was willing to help me nurse the revisions along. And, 24 hours later, I had an outline of what I planned to do.
It is not easy. I worked for months on those first chapters—the hardest ones of the book. And now, I’m cutting away at them, taking huge chunks out. There goes that charming paragraph I was so proud of. That entire scene I honed for months. The magical twist that seemed so whimsical and fresh. Out they go like unwanted visitors. I learned the phrase “killing your darlings” in my M.F.A. program, and it describes the feeling perfectly. Each paragraph—each word—was crafted with love, and now I’m digging their graves with a shovel.
It’s one of the hardest and most important lessons for writers to learn. The question to ask as you revise isn’t, “Do I like this passage?” “Am I proud of it?” “Is it cool or unique or dazzling?” The question is: Does this particular story (or poem or essay) need this?
If your work doesn’t need that scene or sentence or word, you have to take it out. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter whether it hurts your feelings, whether you worked on it forever, or whether it’s the snazziest paragraph you ever wrote. The only way to create the best writing you can is by asking what your work needs.
It may be that some of the things I’m cutting out of my novel will come back to life in a different form. Who knows? Some future book or story might call out for the exact passage that doesn’t work in my current novel. In the meantime, I grieve as I shovel dirt over my sweetums, but then I dust off my hands and walk from their graves knowing I’ve done the right thing. My job as a writer isn’t to make myself feel good, to show off my cleverness or skill at turning a phrase. My job is to serve my writing, and I’m doing that job the best way I can.
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I have had experienced writers talk about this often: the need to throw away portions that aren‘t needed no matter how brilliant they may seem to the author.
Yes, it’s a pretty common experience.