from Barbara Kingsolver- author

Do you go through a lot of drafts?

Gazillions.  I adore revision.  Whether it’s a two-page article or a 500-page book, I rewrite endlessly.  I may rewrite the first paragraph of a novel fifty times before I’m satisfied.  I comb through a manuscript again and again, altering every sentence a little or a lot.  I don’t print out every draft on paper, or I’d be mowing down forests.  


Pounding out a first draft is like hoeing a row of corn – you just keep your head down and concentrate on getting to the end.  Revision is where fine art begins.  It’s thrilling to take an ending and pull it backward like a shiny thread through the whole fabric of a manuscript, letting little glints shine through here and there.  To plant resolution, like a seed, into chapter one.  To create new scenes, investing a character with the necessary damage, the right kind of longing.  To pitch out boldly and try again.  To work every metaphor across the whole, back and forth, like weaving.  I love that word “fabrication,” because making an elaborate fiction feels so much like making cloth. 


Perfectionism is my disease.  Revision is my milk and honey.


Read more from Barbara Kingsolver