THE ICE PICK

Getting the Words Right: How to Revise, Edit & Rewrite, by Theodore A. Rees Cheney. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books. ISBN 0-89879-114-6. $15.95.

If you write for yourself, you don’t need to revise; if you write for others, you must make your work clear and interesting.

Cheney’s book is a book of rules. He is often funny, but always honest and forthright in his opinions and strict in his precepts. But if you want to know how to write something correctly and need the guidance of someone who knows what he is talking about to answer your questions and give you confidence, this book is definitely worth your time.

Revision is a daunting undertaking for most of us, and especially so for beginners. Where do you start? Experienced writers tend to do everything at once, and often find it hard to explain their actions. Cheney breaks the process down into three steps, that while not necessarily easy to do, are easy to follow.

First, he discusses "revision by reduction." This is logical, since we don’t want to spend time reworking something we’re going to toss out.

In fiction, he says to look first for those whole scenes that can be eliminated or shortened drastically. (I didn’t say this was going to be easy, did I? But we must always ask if this scene or chapter moves the piece forward.) Sometimes a whole character can be terminated, or merged with another. This is more difficult, because not only must every instance of the person’s name be ferreted out, but all the relationships this character has had with others also must be found and fixed. Flashbacks that have become "flopbacks" can be trimmed or replaced with a bit of narrative. Other things can be better served with a brief summary. And then there are the lesser reductions (getting rid of redundant words), "micro-reductions" (using shorter words) and even "nano-reductions" (getting rid of pieces of words!).

The second section deals with rethinking and rearranging what we have. Here Cheney shows how to make our writing clear so that the reader’s vision more closely matches our own. This may mean adding words and transitions, replacing some words or phrases with better ones, or rearranging words, sentences, or paragraphs for balance, coherence, or consistency.

The third part concerns revision by rewording. He discusses style and diction, the importance of rhythm and sound in our writing, choosing the correct words and avoiding unnecessary jargon, dialect, sexism, and obscenities, as well as using (and abusing) allusions and figurative writing.

Like all good books on revision, this is a hands-on work. For example, we are often warned to vary the lengths of our sentences. The sentence length of successful professional fiction writers averages about fifteen words. You can tell how you measure up by taking eighteen consecutive sentences from your own work and graphing them. You should have a broad range, from one-word sentences to occasional forty-word monsters, and the more varied your sentence lengths are, the better.

The book is very well organized into short digestible bits, and the table of contents and index are both excellent, making it simple to find what you’re looking for. Although accessible, this is not an easy book, and you won’t get much out of it if you just read it and lay it aside or dip in and out of it for help only with those things you know you have trouble with, ignoring others you may never think of. I recommend it for serious writers, experienced and inexperienced alike.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter. Mar. 1999. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, July 2000.}