Do you ever wonder how others edit their writing?
Me, too.
So, picture my delight when I came across a fabulous example of revision …
By a bestselling author!
This revision is more fundamental than cutting a couple of words or ironing out a few typos.
The final version is longer, more vivid, and more dramatic than the rough draft.
Want to know more?
The rough draft
In her book The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr discusses the importance of revision, and she shows us a rough draft of a sentence from her memoir Lit:
Mother drove me to college in our yellow station wagon, and every night we stayed at a Holiday Inn, where we got drunk on screwdrivers.
What’s up with that sentence?
At first glance, it looks okay. It’s grammatically correct. It has some visual detail (the yellow station wagon), and it feels like the start of a story: Why did they get drunk on screwdrivers?
So, why did Karr revise that sentence?
The edited version
In the final version of Lit, Karr has replaced that one sentence by the following two paragraphs.
This is how the second chapter starts:
Mother’s yellow station wagon slid like a Monopoly icon along the gray road that cut between fields of Iowa corn, which was chlorophyll green and punctuated in the distance by gargantuan silver silos and gleaming, unrusted tractors glazed cinnamon red. Mother told me how the wealth of these farmers differed from the West Texas dirt farmers of her Dust Bowl youth, who doled out mortgaged seed from croaker sacks.
But because I was seventeen and had bitten my cuticles raw facing the prospect of fitting in at the private college we’d reach that night—which had accepted me through some mixture of pity and oversight—and because I was split-headed with the hangover Mother and I had incurred the night before sucking down screwdrivers in the unaptly named Holiday Inn in Kansas City, I told Mother something like, Enough already about your shitty youth. You’ve told me about eight million times since we pulled out of the garage.
What a difference, eh?
The writing has become sensory, almost like a movie.
We could debate whether the first sentence of the revised version is a bit too long with too many details. But read it slowly and you can see the yellow station wagon sliding along the gray road. You can imagine the landscape: The fields of corn, the silver silos, and the red tractors. You can almost hear Karr’s mother talk about the poverty of the farmers she knew in her youth.
There’s also emotional tension. You can picture 17-year-old Karr, her cuticles bitten, nervous about going to a private college. You can feel her fears of not belonging. And there’s the tension with her mother as she’s telling her she’s heard enough about her shitty youth.
So, how did Karr go from one sentence to such a sensory description full of tension?
How to revise your writing
In the revised version, we (as readers) are driving along watching the landscape pass by.
To create such a sense of place, Karr recommends a meditative exercise: Sit on your chair, close your eyes, and try to move your attention out of your chattering mind into your body. Next, go back in time and try conjuring up a sensory impression of your memories. What did you hear? What did you see? What did you smell? What were you wearing?
Kent Haruf used a similar ritual to write fiction. He blindfolded himself so he could fully immerse himself in the fictitious town he was writing about.
Reading a vivid text is almost like watching a movie. As writers, we have to conjure up that movie in our own minds before we can show it to our readers.
To show the difference it makes, let’s read the rough draft of Karr’s sentence once more:
Mother drove me to college in our yellow station wagon, and every night we stayed at a Holiday Inn, where we got drunk on screwdrivers.
Why is that one sentence not like a movie? Why is it harder to visualize?
The one-sentence version summarizes one long drive with several stays at Holiday Inns and multiple instances of drunkenness. You can’t picture that summary.
The revised version describes one moment at a time. That’s why it feels like a movie. It’s almost as if we’re sitting in the car with Karr and her mother.
The power of introspection
When Karr started writing Lit, she didn’t have a clear vision of what her memoir would be about. She wrote hundreds of pages before realizing the book had to be about her mother, about making peace with her mother’s legacy.
So, she injects the tension with her mother into her revision. She let’s her mother talk about her childhood poverty, and she shows us how fed up her 17-year-old self was as she says: Enough already about your shitty youth. You’ve told me about eight million times since we pulled out of the garage.
When you know the essence of your story, you can cut out the irrelevant parts and make the remaining parts stronger. That’s how you shape your story.
The power of stories
In her book The Art of Memoir, Karr admits that she doesn’t feel like a storyteller.
How can that be?
Her books are full of stories, and I listened to her podcast with Tim Ferriss, and she’s telling one story after another there, too.
But here’s the thing …
To share your stories, you don’t need to call yourself a storyteller. The key is in the doing: Finding, shaping, and telling your stories.
As Karr shows, storytelling can be hard, yet rewarding work.
First, determine what your story is about.
Next, turn your writing into a vivid, dramatic movie, and let your readers ride along.
Books mentioned in this post:
- The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
- Lit by Mary Karr
Recommended reading on writing and revising a sentence:
How to write a sparkling sentence
How to write clear and concise sentences
How to write one true sentence
What we have here is, in my opinion, not the editing of a sentence. What we have is a rough sketch of what the author wants to say, then written from that sketch.
It is more than an outline.
It is less than a draft.
And yes, when she’s finished with it, the two paragraphs draw us deep into the story, almost as if we had slipped into a hologram before we knew where we were headed.
Yes, it’s a rough draft. I haven’t seen the rest of her rough draft so I wouldn’t call it less than a draft.
That is wonderful. I enjoy writing, but I’ll have to go through some of my stuff (most of it, actually), and attempt at making it look, and feel, like a movie as well. I’m sure it will be like scaling Mount Everest using a fork and knife.
Thanks for this email, Henneke. I found it enlightening.
Yea, editing can be hard work, like scaling Mount Everest indeed. Keep in mind that not all writing has to be like a movie. Some parts are quicker to summarize. Thank you for stopping by, James. I appreciate it.
Thanks for this post! Been feeling uninspired lately . Will check out The Art of Memoir – I’m curious!
I highly recommend The Art of Memoir. Lots of useful writing advice, even if you don’t want to write a memoir but something else.
Interesting. Through the longer “movie” paragraphs the author put herself outside of her story. She then described what she saw as her story unfolded in front of her eyes. I would describe it as “show and tell.”
The two sentence start captures the flat, disinterested voice a teenager who is so detached from the proceedings she is bland to jaded while getting drunk with her mother .
Had the author gone with the two sentence start it would have become an introspective mood/moody piece and probably ended after ten pages or less. I think she had to ” get out of herself” to tell the story.
Such an astute observation. Thank you for sharing, Curtis.
I do think there’s some dissociation as she gives her adult view on what happened to her as a teenager.
I took an online memoir writing course in 2021 given (then and still) by a Canadian author (I’m Canadian too) and I learned that Mary Karr and her book The Art of Memoir is the penultimate book for we memoir writers. I’m still writing mine! AND I bought the book.
I’m going to send this article link to my memoir writing accountability partners!!!!
BTW – will you please send me the link to Tim Ferriss’ interview with her, please?
I found there’s a lot of great writing advice in Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir, and it’s very well written. Much of the advice is useful to any writer, even if not writing a memoir.
The interview with Tim Ferriss and Mary Karr is here: https://tim.blog/2020/11/11/mary-karr/
As always, Henneke, your words make much sense.
As a copy writer, I find Karr’s work over-the-top descriptive, but acknowledge not everyone sees it that way.
The differences we have make for a richer world – who would argue against that? Thanks again.
Of course, you don’t write sales copy in the same way as a memoir. And it’s also a matter of voice. But even so, we can use similar techniques in writing sales copy. A memoirist gives readers a glimpse of their life, letting readers imagine what their life is (or was) like. A copywriter lets readers imagine how buying a product, service or course can change their lives.
This is an intriguing example because … I preferred the early version. I found it hard to read the second version.
I guess that’s my preference: my eyes tend to skim over elaborate sentences with lots of description in them.
It seems that some people stumble over the descriptive first sentence of those two paragraphs. See also my discussion with Kitty here in the comments for more details.
Hard agree.
I really enjoyed this post. I’ve read a number of self-published books and there is a real need for the art of editing out there. Being a poet and a writer, I often think of “less is more” when I’m editing my work.
However, “show don’t tell” is the other three-word icon in writing. And that is when writing can blossom from good to great.
Excellent example of what can be done when you stop telling a story and just immerse yourself in the atmosphere of it.
Yes, so true. While “less is more” is a good guideline, there needs to be a balance with “show don’t tell,” with writing more vividly.
One day, I’d like to learn how to write poetry. I think prose writers (including non-fiction writers and content marketers) can learn a lot from poets.
Thank you for stopping by, Bob. I appreciate it.
Hi Henneke,
This is a fun post (and a fun game). For my taste, I don’t like the revised first sentence (“Mother’s yellow station wagon slid like a Monopoly icon…”). It has unnecessary details.
However…
The image from “But because I was seventeen and had bitten my cuticles raw…” is very vivid. You could cut almost everything else and just leave that–the image says so much. (And even then, I think a person could pare down the wordiness of that sentence.)
Thank you, Henneke. This is a fun exercise.
Yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t like that sentence. You’re not the only one.
What I really wanted to explain is the process of revision and how Karr imagines the scene before describing it and how she discovers the essence of her story (or the story arc) and then injects emotional tension. I recognized the process but had never described it like this nor seen anyone else describe it.
Karr has a really strong voice and that’s not to everyone’s liking. But you can use the same process and tone down the voice, making it less wordy to suit your personal style.
Fabulous blog as always. Thanks for delving more into the art of editing and how it can more life to a text.
Thank you, Michael. Happy editing!
The first sentence (“Mother’s yellow station wagon slid like a Monopoly icon along the gray road that cut between fields of Iowa corn, which was chlorophyll green and punctuated in the distance by gargantuan silver silos and gleaming, unrusted tractors glazed cinnamon red”) “smells of the lamp,” to use a very old expression. It’s over-written: it tries too hard.
I wouldn’t write it like that either. I prefer my writing a little simpler. But it suits Karr’s voice.
What an editing! If we can call this editing.
Editing conjures up an image of long drawn sentences and paragraphs being snipped into their crisper clearer versions.
Not so here.
Here, as you explain, the first draft has been converted to a movie! Awesome. Thanks for this Henneke.
Yes, I know. There’s so much more to editing.
I’m glad you enjoyed this, Shweta. Happy editing! 🙂
Wow! This post is one of the best I’ve seen on your website. There are many very good ones, but I particularly liked this one.
I loved it!
Congratulations, you have helped me a lot to know how to tell a story!
Thank you, Alberto. It was fun to write this. Happy storytelling!
I do like the first sentence better. The long paragraph with the endless descriptions only makes me think: what’s this story going to be about, get on with it already.
But. The yellow car is an unnecessary detail in that first sentence.
>>Mother drove me to college in our yellow station wagon, and every night we stayed at a Holiday Inn, where we got drunk on screwdrivers.<>Mother drove me to college, and every night we stayed at a Holiday Inn, where we got drunk on screwdrivers.<>Mother drove me to college, and told me about her shitty youth during the Dust Bowl. <<
Yes, the yellow car in the first sentence doesn’t really do much. You’re right.
I’m surprised you don’t like the two paragraphs. The descriptions don’t feel endless to me and so much more happens than in the short summary sentence. But perhaps it’s because I read it as a book first, not online?
Of course, there’s some personal preference as well. I also think Karr’s voice is so much stronger in the paragraphs. The one sentence could just have been written by anyone.
I only don’t like the first few lines, with the descriptions. For the first few lines in a book, I don’t think they are strong enough.
I am not interested in Monopoly icons. And why on earth would she use the adjective chlorophyll? chlorophyll IS green.
So I would have preferred dialogue, or something conveying emotions.
They’re not the first few lines of the book. They’re the start of the second chapter. I’ve specifically mentioned that in the blog post because I agree it works less well as the opening lines of a book. It’s page 27 according to my Kindle (there’s also a prologue).
I don’t see it as my task to defend Mary Karr’s word choice but from reading her work my impression is that she writes like a poet—she chooses each word with care.
About the Monopoly icons, she explains in her book The Art of Memoir that she specifically uses it to show that this is her adult version of the truth: “The Monopoly icon image says I am using imagined scenes from my adult point of view.” I don’t know about that. I didn’t understand that on first reading.
And here’s what she writes about why she describes the landscape: “And that beautiful Iowa corn, the sheer order and wealth of it—those rich farms with large white houses—that’s the kind of American scene I longed to enter. It opposes my squalid hometown and Mother’s own Dust Bowl childhood. The cornfield is an apt symbol for what I aspired to, at the time. Folks from normal childhoods might fear the tidy repetition of the rows. To me, they looked like an order that lent comfort. So I used the image to begin the chapter.” Even without that context, the description of the landscape still works for me because it creates a strong sense of place. But I appreciate we all have our personal preferences for how descriptive a text can be.
I didn’t want to go into all these details in my blog post because I mostly wanted to share the process but it seems that didn’t work so well. That process is still valid though, even if you want a text to be less descriptive.
The fact that she heavily rewrote was interesting enough in itself 😉 I always forget how much many writers edit.
Her explanation of why she uses the Monopoly icons: as a reader, I just want the story to work, whatever reason she picks.
And yes, I am an impatient reader. Although I am right now enjoying Het hout van Jeroen Brouwers – not fast, no thriller, not even very enjoyable subject matter (abuse in seminary) but so, so well written.
Second chapter – sorry, my bad.
Taste does account for so much – the entire theatre industry would be gone if everyone was like me 😉
Yes, I’m with you on the Monopoly icon. But understanding that meaning doesn’t feel essential to following the story. It still works, and I still get that her adult voice is relating what happened in her childhood. t
Taste is such an interesting subject. When a writing style is not to my taste (or less so), it’s harder to appreciate whether it’s good writing. I’m learning!
PS On rewriting: Karr mentions that she threw away 1,200 finished pages of her memoir (She’s written 3 memoirs and I think this comment referred to Lit). I also think memoir writing is more challenging (and therefore will involve more rewriting) than writing a business book or a writing guide. Definitely more challenging than blogging 🙂
Hi Henneke, Thank you for this exercise to add more sensory context to our writing.
The phrase “drunk on screwdrivers” reminds me of when I was a kid and that’s what my parents and their friends drank. I haven’t heard that phrase in years.
I really get the picture of how she edited it as you have highlighted. Thanks for inspiring me to get more creative with my writing in 2023.
I didn’t know screwdrivers were that popular. I looked it up, and it was described somewhere as a morning eye-opener. Ugh.
I’m glad you enjoyed this. I highly recommend Mary Karr’s book. Some of the advice is specific to memoirs, but most of it is useful for any type of writing.
Thank you for stopping by!
I’ve been a bartender for going on three decades now.
One of my first bartending jobs was at a Holiday Inn lounge, just off a major U.S. Interstate.
I used to open this lounge — called Bogies (the adjoining restaurant Bacalls) — at 10:00am every Saturday and Sunday, and one unforgettable Sunday morning, circa 1994, a group of roughnecks came in for eye-openers.
Roughnecks are oil-field workers, and the term “roughneck” is not pejorative. Roughnecks in fact prefer it to, for example, “oilmen.”
On that unforgettable Sunday morning, I was treated to a most entertaining and edifying history lesson concerning the nature and origins of the Screwdriver cocktail.
The inventors of the Screwdriver, I was told, were American roughnecks working out in the Persian Gulf during the late 1940’s. Alcohol then was illegal across most of this entire region, and so the roughnecks smuggled in the least detectable spirit they could find — vodka — and mixed it with the most pungent mixer they could find: orange juice.
They did not use their oily fingers to stir their newly created concoction — and can you guess what these roughnecks stirred it up with instead?
Yes, indeed: the screwdrivers on their toolbelts!
Bartenders the wide world over are rightly suspicious of all cocktail origin stories. Yet this particular origin story holds up to even the deepest and most hard-core historical scrutiny.
It’s also interesting to note that the closely related Harvey Wallbanger cocktail — a Screwdriver add half-ounce Galliano and float it on top — was invented as early as 1952, by a Hollywood bartender named Duke Antone. Duke is also, just incidentally, credited with inventing the Rusty Nail and the White Russian.
The Harvey Wallbanger, now an endangered cocktail species on the very brink of extinction, was during the 1970s so popular in America that a journalist for the New York Times wrote this about it:
It is purely coincidence that Mary Karr’s father was a roughneck, and one hell of a worker at that. Mary Karr’s depiction of her father, in what I consider her best book by light years — The Liars Club — is absolutely, unequivocally stupendous: stupendously well-written, stupendously memorable, stupendously touching, stupendously brilliant.
Wow. Thanks so much for sharing all of this, Ray. So interesting! I had no idea.
I’ve not read The Liars Club yet. I’ll read it next. Thank you for the nudge. I’m looking forward to it.