Afraid of My Own Work

I was talking with my writer friend Chase Webster the number of drafts he has done for his upcoming book Eat ‘Em. (I highly recommend it when he finally finishes it. From the rough drafts, it promises to be an outstanding.) His theory is that your second draft should be half as long as your rough draft. I objected that if I cut that much I would be left with little more than a short story.

He looked at mean and said, “You’re afraid to cut. Aren’t you?”

I responded reflexively, “No I’m not!” I showed him.


Have you ever seen those commercials where the guy tells his friend that he needs to eat a snickers because he turns into a diva (Aretha Franklin is in one) when he’s hungry? He gave me that, “Go eat a Snickers” look, but changed the subject to coffee or something equally inane.
I have decided, after careful thought, that he really is wrong, but only in the way that Aristotle was wrong that there are four elements. He may not have fully understood the issue, but there was an element of truth. What I realized is that I am not afraid not to cut but to edit.

I am meticulous with my grammar, but proofreading and editing are very different things. I can check spelling and usage with no issues, but turning a critical eye to my own work is, in a word, terrifying. My fear of cutting in my writing is not that I will have to cut something I love. I’m not even concerned that other people might not like it (although it does make it easier to publish and sell).
My fear is very simple, what if even I don’t like it? It sounds like I’m insane (I know several people who are of that opinion to varying degrees), but it is true. Worse, it has happened before.

It was late at night, and I was in a manic writing frenzy with a story about robots growing humans. Once the passion, denial, and caffeine wore off, I wondered where I could have gone so wrong. There is nothing worse than reading a short story that you just wrote and suddenly having the urge to go do something interesting.

I’m not the only author that has written a bad short story or book. Edgar Allen Poe wrote more than one story or poem that only makes sense (presumably) when read on copious amounts of opiates or absinthe. (Actual line, “Bells, bells, bells, bells.”). H. G. Wells wrote an entire book about a comet hitting earth in which no one died. (“The Days of the Comet.”) Tom Clancy wrote “The Sum of All Fears,” John Grisham wrote “King of Torts,” and Stephen King wrote “The Dark Half” (possibly more than once).

Of course, far worse than writing a book you hate is to write a book you love, but is terrible. I’ve been told before that a story I wrote was too dry, pedantic, didactic, or prolix to the point of loquaciousness. Okay, no one has actually said the last one. People just say “wordy”; saying it like that is reserved for Supreme Court Justices and cynical bloggers. The first three I have seen. Some editors get very creative in their criticisms, though others seem to paste random words together for no reason. (One story when I was just starting out was “wordy and choppy” which really is miraculous. Another editor said he didn’t like stories about the afterlife despite the fact that no one in my story was dead.)

The general advice from giants in the field (especially Stephen King) is that you should look to take out every unnecessary word you can. Can your story live without it? Then it should. While I don’t agree with his policy of never using adverbs (supposedly), he has a point. What every story needs is not cuts or additions, or even a critical eye. Your story may be better for cuts. Cut first, and rebuild if necessary. Without the major injury to begin with, The Bionic Man would have just ended up as The Man.

Don’t be afraid to cut, but turn on track changes. That way you can look back later, and see what you may have deleted too eagerly (and if that is your problem as a writer I envy your self-esteem). Don’t be afraid to break the story, you have the technology, you can rebuild. Every story needs tough love.