Chris Dietzel's Blog - Posts Tagged "hemingway"
You can never edit too much
First drafts are always awful. Always. In 'Bird By Bird,' Anne Lamott has an entire chapter dedicated to how crappy initial drafts are. In “On Writing,” Stephen King gives the reader a glimpse at what one of his first drafts looks like so they can see how far it is from the finished product. To drive the point home, Ernest Hemingway once said, “The first draft of anything is shit.”
The only way to go from that terrible first draft to books like “Misery” or “The Old Man And The Sea,” is to revise. Then revise some more. Then revise again. Maybe two or three more times. And then you have a great book. The process doesn’t change for new writers or established authors, indie authors or New York Times Bestselling authors. It’s what unites every writer.
Think of the books you adore. They were probably edited for a very long time. Think of the books you wish were better. They probably weren’t edited enough. If you’re a reader and you love a certain writer’s work, whether it’s King or Hemingway or someone else, remember that they are doing the majority of their work after the first draft is finished. And if you’re an author or want to be an author, remember that another revision of the entire book can never hurt.
And now, it’s time for me to start revising my next book (for what feels like the hundredth time!).
PS: Make sure you sign up for my newsletter if you haven’t already. Last week, I sent out a sneak peak of the cover for my next book but only people who were signed up for my newsletter got to see it! And there are more goodies where that came from. : )
The only way to go from that terrible first draft to books like “Misery” or “The Old Man And The Sea,” is to revise. Then revise some more. Then revise again. Maybe two or three more times. And then you have a great book. The process doesn’t change for new writers or established authors, indie authors or New York Times Bestselling authors. It’s what unites every writer.
Think of the books you adore. They were probably edited for a very long time. Think of the books you wish were better. They probably weren’t edited enough. If you’re a reader and you love a certain writer’s work, whether it’s King or Hemingway or someone else, remember that they are doing the majority of their work after the first draft is finished. And if you’re an author or want to be an author, remember that another revision of the entire book can never hurt.
And now, it’s time for me to start revising my next book (for what feels like the hundredth time!).
PS: Make sure you sign up for my newsletter if you haven’t already. Last week, I sent out a sneak peak of the cover for my next book but only people who were signed up for my newsletter got to see it! And there are more goodies where that came from. : )
Writing Influences
I’ve had a quote on my desk for about ten years. So long that I’m not even sure where I originally found it. The quote is:
“William Faulkner imitated Shakespeare and Herman Melville. Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison imitated Faulkner. Ernest Hemingway imitated Anton Chekhov. Raymond Carver imitated Hemingway. Jack Kerouac imitated Marcel Proust and Thomas Wolfe. Allen Ginsberg imitated Walt Whitman and William Blake.”
The lesson here is that every writer—every artist of every sort—learns from those who came before them by initially copying their style in order to find the things they liked and didn’t like and, as a result, find their own voice in the process. The same holds true for today’s writers as much as it did for those who are already considered legends. Richard Ford, author of ‘The Sportswriter,’ was influenced by Raymond Carver and Ralph Waldo Emerson. J.M. Coetzee, author of ‘Waiting for the Barbarians,’ was influenced by Ford Maddox Ford. Nick Cole, author of the Wasteland Series, was influenced by Hemingway.
Every author you speak to probably has a similar influence(s). My own are two I mentioned above: Ford and Coetzee. The interesting thing is tracing the lineage of your influence. For example, while I consider myself to be a blend of Ford and Coetzee, if I trace their own influences back one step, I’m actually a blend of Carver, Emerson, and Maddox Ford.
For all practical purposes, this lineage has no implication other than it’s extremely interesting. If you're a writer, how far back can you trace the lineage of your own writing influences? And if you have dreams of one day becoming a writer, take comfort in knowing that the greats and those who aim to be great learned how to write the same way as you: by learning from those whose books they enjoyed and whose writing completely captured them.
“William Faulkner imitated Shakespeare and Herman Melville. Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison imitated Faulkner. Ernest Hemingway imitated Anton Chekhov. Raymond Carver imitated Hemingway. Jack Kerouac imitated Marcel Proust and Thomas Wolfe. Allen Ginsberg imitated Walt Whitman and William Blake.”
The lesson here is that every writer—every artist of every sort—learns from those who came before them by initially copying their style in order to find the things they liked and didn’t like and, as a result, find their own voice in the process. The same holds true for today’s writers as much as it did for those who are already considered legends. Richard Ford, author of ‘The Sportswriter,’ was influenced by Raymond Carver and Ralph Waldo Emerson. J.M. Coetzee, author of ‘Waiting for the Barbarians,’ was influenced by Ford Maddox Ford. Nick Cole, author of the Wasteland Series, was influenced by Hemingway.
Every author you speak to probably has a similar influence(s). My own are two I mentioned above: Ford and Coetzee. The interesting thing is tracing the lineage of your influence. For example, while I consider myself to be a blend of Ford and Coetzee, if I trace their own influences back one step, I’m actually a blend of Carver, Emerson, and Maddox Ford.
For all practical purposes, this lineage has no implication other than it’s extremely interesting. If you're a writer, how far back can you trace the lineage of your own writing influences? And if you have dreams of one day becoming a writer, take comfort in knowing that the greats and those who aim to be great learned how to write the same way as you: by learning from those whose books they enjoyed and whose writing completely captured them.
