Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process
The river's algorithm is simple. At each step, flow down.
For the essayist this translates to: flow interesting.
Of all the places to go next, choose the most interesting.
One can't have quite as little foresight as a river. I always
know generally what I want to write about.
But not the
specific conclusions I want to reach; from paragraph to
paragraph I... See more
For the essayist this translates to: flow interesting.
Of all the places to go next, choose the most interesting.
One can't have quite as little foresight as a river. I always
know generally what I want to write about.
But not the
specific conclusions I want to reach; from paragraph to
paragraph I... See more
The Age of the Essay
Early in a story, I’ll have a few discrete blocks (blobs? swaths?) of loose, sloppy text. As I revise, those blocks will start to . . . get better. Soon, a block will start working—I can get all the way through it without a needle drop. The word that sometimes comes to mind is “undeniable,” as in “All right, this bit is pretty much undeniable,” wh
... See moreGeorge Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
I would go so far as to suggest that you should always write your lead (redoing it and polishing it until you are satisfied that it will serve) before you go at the big pile of raw material and sort it into a structure.