You really should burn old manuscripts otherwise somebody might offer to publish them and then you have to rewrite. The problem with old writing is it is old and you just didn't know what you were doing. You thought you did but when you go back through that old prose you see someone who just wasn't there yet. Still, there is a story that might be worth something.
So you start hacking. And I mean hack. Like cutting the book by fifty percent and even then you aren't done Because the story is buried in seaweed and just about every other growth. You have to hack through the forest to see if there is a story worth salvaging and you wont know until you are done. And so out goes every bad metaphor you thought was brilliant and every overwritten scene and every sideshow and backstory.
Out the door one two three. And then once that is done you will have something that may or may not stand up on it's own. It is just amazing that at one time you wrote so badly. Like I said, really burning would have been much more painless.
www.williamhazelgrove.com
So you start hacking. And I mean hack. Like cutting the book by fifty percent and even then you aren't done Because the story is buried in seaweed and just about every other growth. You have to hack through the forest to see if there is a story worth salvaging and you wont know until you are done. And so out goes every bad metaphor you thought was brilliant and every overwritten scene and every sideshow and backstory.
Out the door one two three. And then once that is done you will have something that may or may not stand up on it's own. It is just amazing that at one time you wrote so badly. Like I said, really burning would have been much more painless.
www.williamhazelgrove.com
