newstalk

Revision.

I received my first real “call for submissions” of my post-college life today. A friend of mine over at Tyndale House is looking for short articles on spiritual topics. So, today I went back and revised one of my old entries. The major problem: the original essay (nay, essaylet) is around 680 words. The requested word count? 200-400. My friends, this is tiny.

How to chop 200+ words off of an already rather condensed text, without stunting the effect or stealing its soul? Revision, and lots of it.

You start by chopping off unnecessary words; all those rich, savory adjectives have to go. The new text must be lean.

You rephrase yourself, packing the same ideas into fewer words. The new text must be mean.

You chop out all the ideas that aren’t absolutely essential to the central theme. The new text must be a fighting machine.

You check the word count again. You realize that you’ve only cut out twelve words.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Pretty soon, after five or six rounds of this, you’re cutting real close to the quick of the text. It’s at this point I usually hit the wall. I’m still 130 words away from my goal of 400, and I don’t see anything left to cut. Some writers in the trade refer to this stage of revision as “murdering your darlings.” They’re not far off; it’s about on the same level as killing puppies, at least.

Beyond the wall, however, comes a new understanding of the text; enlightenment, if you will. With sudden intensity, you see and hear and feel the living heartbeat of this little misshapen lump of alphabet soup. From here on in, it’s all intuition. Yes, if I snip here and tie here and pull on this end and push this part down and tug here…

Somewhere around 430 words, the end is in sight. You know this text like you know that you know. And when the word count comes inching down below 400, it’s almost hard to stop. 399… 398… 396. But then you stop yourself, and you start to polish. Spit and rub. Cut this part a little too close—better smooth it out. Next thing you know you’re back up to 416, but it doesn’t matter, because you’re done; the text works, and word counts are just guidelines anyway.

Aren’t they?