Forgotten Bestseller Secrets - Keep 'Em Reading: Lesson 06

WRITING STRAIGHT AHEAD. Regardless of how much organization a writer does, he doesn’t always wind up with fresh copy flowing like a warm Spring wind over the wintry fields...

FOR ANY FICTION OR NON-FICTION WORK, there is any needed research and organization. This is, perhaps, seem the struggle between “plotters” and “pantsers”. Regardless of how much organization the plotter does, he doesn’t always wind up with fresh copy flowing like a warm Spring wind over the wintry fields. And the untrained writer who relies on sheer inspired word-smithing may see all his freshest work wash up on some publisher’s shore, unpublished and useless.

In studying W. S. Campbell’s work, as well as his fellow instructor Foster Harris, I found another point of definite agreement. Organize as best you can, then rise the next morning — and write with no reference to notes. Then — the following day — start revising.

- - - -

NOTES CAN PROVE INVALUABLE with extensive work, when materials see repeated use. But it is one thing to take notes and quite another to use them. More people know how to take them than know how to use them.

Some books and articles require notes, but one must use notes correctly, or they will stifle creativity. A book or article written from notes shows it. For the author almost invariably copies out the note instead of presenting the matter it contains a fresh approach – from his own point of view, and in his own words. The notes-only result is compiling chunks of solid undigested fact, and these gobs of fact, lifted from the notebook, clog and check the flow and continuity of the work.

Continuity, as we discovered, is the basic principle of good writing. Lacking such continuity, our reader will stop reading, rendering our effort futile. Therefore we must not write right from our notes, or we will defeat our purpose every time.

Neat-printed or typed copies of hardworking Doctors of Philosophy’s theses fill university libraries’ shelves. These tyro scholars have to print their theses at their own expense and donate them to their university.

As the university awarding the thesis degree won’t fund this type of writing. Those thesis’ unreadable nature is due to writing from notes. To produce publishable work, avoid writing from notes.

More modern prose writers hail from Oxford than any other English-speaking university. Many renowned English prose stylists studied at Oxford. No doubt it would be interesting to discover why Oxford leads the field. While no simple explanation would satisfy, we may put our finger on a single cause.

At Oxford, the tutor assigns the undergraduate a weekly essay, specifying the topic and suggesting sources. The undergraduate, having read the suggested, makes his notes and arranges them in the order in which he proposes to discuss the topics in his essay. These he fixes firmly in mind. The tutor requires the essay written tomorrow; with no forbidden notes. This impacts the outcome. If some lazy undergraduate, hoping to save time and labor, writes his essay from his notes, he finds the stratagem a boomerang. Hearing the essay, the tutor identifies its origins; the student must rewrite it without notes.

The rather large number of Oxford men who have written readable books may, I think, be due in no small degree to this training in writing without reference to notes.

You may depend upon it that your public will be just as quick to detect and to reject a book or paper written from notes as any Oxford tutor. That method will not do.

So, when you have gathered and arranged your materials as you intend to present them, read and reread these until you have the whole in mind. Then go to bed. Next morning write without reference to your notes and your authorities. Upon waking, proceed right to work; ignore them. Write fresh, in your own words. Then you’ll possess a personal creation, even if others provide its components. You will have something readable, something original, something with continuity and drive.

Authors cannot keep every note required for a long book. The rule holds. Write each chapter, without notes, rather than attempting the entire book at once. This will mean that the writer must spend one day on his notes and the next day on his writing, So that he writes only on alternate days.

After writing his chapter, the author will use his notes to verify the accuracy of his dates, quotations, and references. If these corrections are many or extensive, he must beware of writing them from notes. He should apply the same method to the corrections as he did to the first draft, studying these one day, and writing them into his manuscript the next.

Although this method requires considerable hard work and concentration, it gives the best results. Our goal is quality work, not convenience. This method makes for faster writing. Producing a chapter every two days surpasses most rivals. Writing from notes isn’t a fast process; this method is much swifter.

A man is foolish to ignore a method improving both work quality and quantity once he’s discovered it.

- - - -

THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO AVOID DULLNESS. That is to write without notes. If you hope to write well, you will never write your final version from your notes. If you find you cannot write without them, you may take it for granted that you are not ready to write your final draft. You have not digested your material.

Extensive projects, including novels and biographies, cause advance planning, thoughtful deliberation, and division into manageable sections.

Writers don’t produce good books overnight. But the method recommended here will well repay this extra trouble.

One celebrated biographer has declared that, before undertaking to write a full-length biography (100,000 words or more), he first writes a fast life-story of his hero in a shorter version of about 15,000 words at top speed, and without consulting his notes at all. He gathers up essential elements, handling significant events and details. This concise treatment highlights key subject elements.

Afterward, he is ready to undertake the longer version—this time also, of course, without immediate reference to his authorities. Each chapter receives fresh, note-free writing daily, following a review session the day prior.

Regardless of length—book, story, essay, poem—master your material. Write the final draft without notes or references. Until you can, you are not ready to produce your final draft at all. You have not digested your materials. They are not yet your own. Therefore what you write will not be your own, either.

You will not be a writer—only a drudge putting words in a row!

The fact is that, too often, when we think we are revising, we are copying our earlier errors.

The method, then, is this. When you feel your story is in the best form you can give it, lay it aside overnight, and write it afresh the next morning without looking at your earlier draft. Upon editor return, review manuscripts then identify issues. Next morning, rewrite it afresh, without consulting the rejected version. The results will astonish you.

Never write your final draft from notes.

This rule guarantees first-rate work’s characteristic sweep, coherence, and spontaneity.

- - - -

REVISION AND SELLING.

Our twenty years of university teaching have shown us that a first draft requires rapid and continuous writing. Naturally, this method will not suit all writers. You will need to experiment and find out for yourself which is your best way. However, successful writers develop a similar process:

One. Write your first draft and manage it, trying never to look back, not even to the preceding page.

Two. Now let this first draft “get cold.” Set it aside for a day or two and think and do something else. At the very least, let it cool overnight, because in the morning you may have a very different idea of it than you had the night before.

Three. Review — give a brief plot summary. You know what the parts of a plot are. You know where they should be. You’re performing a surgical check to ensure the baby has the correct number of limbs, a correctly placed head, and proportioned feet. If you cannot synopsize the plot, condensing it into a couple of paragraphs, then you know something is the matter. You also know where surgery is required.

Approach this with detached, critical scrutiny, like an unfamiliar tale. Objectivity concerning one’s personal story, much like that concerning one’s child, remains elusive. Surgeons avoid operating on relatives and close acquaintances; this is the reason. Our own are too close to us, we cannot see them enough for our objective techniques.

If you have a competent coach, or writer-friend who is not an amateur, perhaps here you can ask him to read for you and judge the plot. You’ll need to learn this yourself; expect some pain and clumsiness.

Four. Now, if you deem it necessary, rewrite the story to incorporate the plot corrections needed. Restart, completing the entire process. Don’t start at the end and work backward. We aim to keep the freshness of the initial narrative. Often, excessive revision drains stories of vitality. So you bear this in mind. Minimize cuts and changes. You are trying to make the story seem more real, more believable. Never revise only for style; the existing wording may suffice.

Five. You haven’t finished yet. Let this revision cool and go over it from beginning to end once again. This time look for minutiae.

• Read it one time to make sure all the paragraphs tie together. Edit with a pencil if they don’t.

• Reread: Ensure transitions flow, pronouns have clear antecedents, and gender is specific.

• Read it again to see if you can speed it up, if, perhaps, you can cut out paragraphs or even entire sections.

• Review pages one through four and make sure you introduced all characters, settings, and key plot points.

In brief, make about four or five versions of your story after the first draft, trying hard to concentrate on just one thing in each version:

• one revision in which you correct the plot.

• Another in which you cut and trim for speed and length.

• Another in which you watch for details, clumsy sentences, bad transitions, indefinite pronouns, excess wordage, and the like.

Regarding corrections, remember that there is nothing sacred about mistakes. Cutting, however painful for the author to perform—or watch—may be a good thing for his manuscript. “The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows.”

This infinitely tedious business polishing a story amounts to, and it is why the yarns in the great national magazines are called “slick” stories. They are just that – tales the author has re-done over and over and over. Taking infinite pains, just as he might polish a precious stone.

I admit, often the ultimate result seems to be a brilliant polish job with nothing underneath it, not even a piece of glass. It’s become the norm; magazine and book editors expect this.

There is a difference between a first-draft story, however vital, and a polished “slick” story, just as there is between a diamond in the rough and a finely cut and polished gem. Editors, trained to be objective, prioritize objective polish.

- - - -

WRITING WITH PURPOSE — both unrewarding in financial and social circles — requires more purposeful revision. Your primary consideration here is to bring out your theme.

This timeless story, a song with music and words, is a spoken, not a written, tradition. Read the story aloud to yourself, listening to the rhythm and tune of your words. Or have someone else read to you, or read it onto a tape recorder and play it back so that you may hear it.

If we can, beat the rhythm of our feelings into his subconscious, amoeba mind, we have captured our reader forever, and he will never forget. The ages of great literature have also been ages of great poets. We have none in our day – not one who speaks from the heart. But perhaps a better time will come. Perhaps even now in some drafty garret, there’s some writer is, in revising, listening for the music of his words — for the song that surpasses understanding.

This revision, the hardest, offers only one guideline: the one provided. With Homer, as with Milton and Whitman, the song is to the singer, and returneth to him, and no one else can say just which note he should sing. But when he sings it, his own ear will know.

Working in white fury, the genius may produce excellence in a first draft. But most of us are not geniuses. Learning to write is a slow and difficult process for most. Most of us would profit well by taking even more pains learning how to rewrite, to revise.

Almost without exception – the modern successful short story, novelette, or novel requires painful revision. Apparent simplicity masks extensive, painstaking revision.

Yet once again: To learn to revise, to cut, and rewrite is the most profitable technique a writer can master. It may not convert his production into great literature. But it may bring him ten times the financial return he would have received from his unpolished first drafts.

- - - -

NOW WE’VE MORE THAN RECOVERED the core forgotten bestseller secrets help you revise your writing production.

Our very next chapter involves bringing out the secrets hidden in plain sight. It’s how to use what you’ve learned from the Masters you’ve studied to create your own perennial-selling book. Or even just selling your stories or articles for regular publishing and payment…

---

Table of Contents

---

How This Can Help You

This course and book are being evolved here. Each week (with some later revisions) I’ll bring out a lesson from the course. Meanwhile, I’m cobbling together the main text I’m pulling from - and will make it available in beta (see below) while I edit it in the background.

Meanwhile, comment below or email/DM me with any questions you have. Or get this full beta-edition book, soon available below.

And you can always buy me a coffee…

---

Now available as beta course with ebook!

Available for limited time as pay-what-you-want…

---

---

Paid members get no-cost instant access to this book, along with many other texts.