It's always the paragraphs I loved most, the ones I tenderly polished and re-read with pride, that my editor will suggest cutting.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Asking myself, 'Is this any good?' is pointless. It just slows down my writing, and I can't tell anyway. It's always the paragraphs I loved most, the ones I tenderly polished and re-read with pride, that my editor will suggest cutting.
For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.
Oh, I do a tremendous amount of rewriting. I just obsessively rewrite. Although sometimes there are sections, sometimes you're just lucky and a paragraph will just kind of come out. And that's great. But that's not ordinary in a day's work.
I started writing half a paragraph of a mystery novel, half a paragraph there, and they were terrible.
'In the Cut' was not what readers expected of me. Before it was published, I was seen as a women's writer, which meant that I wrote movingly about flowers and children.
Write every day even if it is just a paragraph.
The truth is, you have about three paragraphs in a short story, three pages in a novel, to capture that editor's attention enough for her to finish your story.
The essay is one of my favourite forms of writing, and I feel like what's inside is really personal, more so than with shorter pieces.
Almost all novels are improved by cutting from the top. On their first pages, authors parade those favourite effects which disgust the impartial reader.
I don't do much rewriting, because each paragraph is very carefully put together.