It’s been a while since I posted a blog on the writing process. People seemed to like the one I wrote a few months ago about my need to edit and rewrite almost every sentence I’ve ever written. I hope I won’t be trying your patience to go into a little detail about how I do this.
In this brief section from a work in progress entitled “Martin Dayson,” the title character, a former governor of Oregon, is testifying to a legislative committee in opposition to a bill that its supporters have claimed is non-controversial.
Dayson watched the members of the committee squirm in their chairs, and he knew he was losing them. They didn’t buy his argument for the simple fact that there was too much work to be done, and done too quickly, to afford Dayson the possibility that he was right. “Despite what you’ve been told, there’s no rush on this thing. I know this won’t be a welcome suggestion, but you need to delay consideration of this bill until next session, when the governor’s office will have to make clear to you what this bill really does. It’s been put off before, back when I sat in Governor Gilkey’s chair. It can be put off again.”
The paragraph is sorta kinda okay, but no better than that. And, knowing me, I’d already edited it a couple of times before it got this far. Anyway, I thought it needed clarity and a reminder of his motivation and an indication that he understood the odds against him. So, I rewrote it (again), and it came out like this:
Dayson watched the members of the committee squirm in their chairs, and he knew he was losing them. They didn’t buy his argument for the simple fact that, given their lack of time to consider the bill, they couldn’t afford the possibility that Dayson was right. He had known from the moment he and Mattie left Topping that morning that he stood virtually no chance. But he’d come at Mattie’s urging to keep faith with his neighbors, and would see it through. “Despite what you’ve been told, there’s no rush on this bill. I know this won’t be a welcome suggestion, but you need to delay consideration of this bill until next session, when the governor’s office will have to make clear to you what this bill really does. It’s been put off before, back when I sat in Governor Gilkey’s chair. It can be put off again, and I ask you to do that.”
I’m trying to remember why I thought this was better. It’s certainly longer – a dangerous sign. Fortunately, as so often happens, as I went to type up my handwritten edits, I realized this para was even worse than the first one. I’d already made the points about his motivation and the odds against him, or, if I hadn’t, I should just give up. By piling on too many words I’d actually managed to make things less clear. I finally saw that I could get to the core of things much more succinctly. Here’s the final version:
Dayson watched the members of the committee squirm in their chairs. As a legislator he had sat on the other side of the dais, listening politely through countless hopeless cases, and he could see he was losing them, had in fact already lost them. They didn't buy his argument for the simple fact that they didn’t have the time for him to be right.
Yeah, that’s it. I finally got it more or less right. I had managed to take a paragraph of 115 words and blow it up to 154. Not good. But by seeing the blather and B.S., and cutting it out, I’d got it down to a 64-word paragraph that actually does what I want it to do.
By going over every one of the manuscript’s 82,000 words and countless paragraphs as I have over this passage, I’ve got a book called Martin Dayson. I’m pretty pleased with. If, after I’ve worked on it for two years, my agent likes it, and if a publisher wants to take it on, it will be the editor’s job to show me how much more work I need to do.
