Writers don’t often talk about how many pages of their writing they throw away. I don’t think anyone is trying to be secretive about it, but the truth is that by the time a book is published, nobody is thinking about all the writing that didn’t make a cut, so it just doesn’t get talked about much.
But no single idea is more crippling to a new writer as the idea that every sentence is precious. Allow me to dispatch that myth for you right now. None of your sentences are precious. Some of them might be good. Some might even be very good, but save yourself a world of heartache and get over the idea that they are precious.
Go Ahead, Throw Pages Away
It was so encouraging to hear that from someone whose writing I so admire. (If you haven’t read Middle Passage, I highly recommend it. It’s a fast-paced adventure on the high seas as told by a recently-freed slave who ends up working on a slave trading ship. Great stuff.)
His assertion got me thinking about how many pages I’ve thrown away. It hard to say for sure, but I would guess I’ve trashed about 20 pages for every 1 in my novel. It is so encouraging to see those numbers in the light of what Johnson said. All of a sudden, those pages I tossed don’t feel like a nagging reminder of all the ideas that didn’t work out. Instead, they felt like signposts verifying that I am on the right path.
And Embrace Technology
The good news is that, working on computers as most of us do, we don’t really have to trash anything, do we? In this day and age, all we really do is move digital files around on our hard drive.
In fact, if you work in Scrivener (and if you don’t, check out my post 5 Reasons You Should Be Using Scrivener), you can use the snapshot function to save new versions right in the same file as the old versions and pull them up to compare them at any time. Isn’t technology great?
I love being able to jaunt down the dark alleyway of a new idea knowing that all my previous pages are safe and sound. If it works out, great. If not, I can always go back. But in truth, I’ve never gone back. Not really. I may take a wrong turn, but every time I do, I learn something about my characters or find nuance in my story that prods me to rewrite again. And on it goes.
All this to say: be bold. There’s something so magical about writing into the void, knowing that most of what we produce won’t ever fall in front of another person’s eyeballs. We will throw away pages (a lot of pages), but in the end, we will keep the ones we love and be happier with our story for it.
What’s your published to trashed page ratio?
I can’t begin to imagine how many pages I’ve thrown away over the years. They would include a lot of stories I thought were good, but others disagreed. That was before computers. But even with stuff saved onto my flash drive, I may delete a file if I think it’s not worth saving. But everyone says keep it because you never know when it can be used in another story. So I do, as much as I want to trash them.
Honestly, I’ve lost count but every bit I write teaches me about my characters. I’d say your ratio sounds right and I expect heaps more before I’m close!
I know, it’s really hard to even estimate, but I don’t consider any of the work wasted. I’m sure I’ll trash even more before I’m done. Thanks for sharing!
My published to trashed page ratio? That is a good question and I dare to say I am afraid to think about it. My editor and I have a color coded system:
Green is a keeper
Yellow is shorten
Orange is rewrite
Red is cut
When she sends me my chapter edits I pause and do a little prayer hoping all I see is green. The prayer isn’t working in case you’re curious.
I have learned that the most important thing is the idea. It may take a while to write it correctly but it will come with persistence and patience.
That jives with what is emerging for me as well. It’s all about an idea, followed by a lot of persistence and patience. I am hopeful that it will get easier with subsequent projects.