Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Slash and Burn, Blood and Gore

Okay, I've got more from you from Stephen Markley's Publish This Book. This one's all about editing, something I should be working on for Book #2, but my brain feels like overcooked oatmeal lately, so I'm taking a break.

Here's Markley's take on the process:

For two days, I tear through my work, silent, efficient, and blood-and-gore deadly. With my trusty red pen, I slash and burn prose, annihilate paragraphs, relocate whole sections, rebuild entire vanquished chapters from the ground up, only to machine-gun to death individual words and punctuation.

Editing may be my favorite part of writing. When you write the first draft, you spew, but when editing, you craft. It's the difference between walking up to a pretty girl in a bar and running your game and actually convincing the girl that you're interesting.



Markley sums it up quite nicely. Good luck with the slash and burn!

3 comments:

Susan Kaye Quinn said...

I love the analogy! Thanks for sharing. :)

Anonymous said...

This was great. I'm reading this book!

L. T. Host said...

Wow, that struck a chord. I like that a lot!