Cutting

24

Many writers report that rewriting involves removing excrescence in order to highlight or clarify important material. The most frequent term in my corpus for describing an act of revising was cut; and cut, its synonyms, or comments that relate to cutting constitute at least a third of the figures about revising that I found. When a word like cut is used to describe revising, it may appear to be a dead metaphor, a figure that has been used so commonly that neither writer nor reader may recognize its figurative associations. Certainly this may be true in many instances; but there are numerous instances in which writers describe their deleting in such a way as to remind us of these figurative associations.

25

For example, John Brunner likens his writing process to gardening, his revising to pruning an ornamental plant.

Organizing [a plot] is akin to pruning an espalier. Given a suitable plant—a promising idea—one must display it on the available trellis: the printed page. If it tends to wander randomly, it must be disciplined back to the required shape. (1978, p. 317)

26

Other writers also make reference to trimming plants: David Jones (1966), having crawled “out on limbs,” then goes ahead and “prunes” them; Penelope Farmer (1976) “prunes” her stories “radically”; and William Goyen implies pruning when he says that he will “cut back, and take what is still living there” (1980, p. 233). Gardening work such as this involves care and delicacy, clearing out bad and dead material, shaping the plant and guiding its tender stems while fostering its growth. Rather than remaining inert, subject to the writer’s efforts to work on it, the text grows on its own. The essential elements are not hidden, but in potential. Trained to grow in the right direction, and trimmed back and shaped when it has not, the plant eventually develops to the point of optimal value.

27

Cut assumes special meaning when Henry Miller (1963) tells us that he goes “to work on [his text] with an axe,” or when Hugh Leonard tells us that he finds cutting difficult when he “cannot get a wedge in because each line fits into the next” (1973, p. 197). Alex Haley (1977) tells us that he “act[s] like a surgeon” when he is writing—focusing on the careful delicate work, even constantly taking showers and washing his hands. “I like to do first drafts at night, when I’m tired, and then do the surgical work in the morning when I’m sharp” (p. 451). There are also, of course, surgical associations with Christopher Isherwood’s use of “amputate” in describing his revising (1976). Donald Hall explains that “the process of peeling away sharpens what’s there. It doesn’t clarify it, it sharpens it’’ (1973, p. 13). Conrad Aiken (1974), B. S. Johnson (1981), and Alice Munro (1973) “chop”; while Milton Meltzer (1979), James A. Michener (1978), and Martin Myers (1973) “hack.” Hugh MacLennan (1973), Jerome Mazzaro (1977), Howard Moss (1974), and Chaim Potok (1980) “pare.” John Ciardi (1964), David Jones (1966), and Chaim Potok (1980) “strip” their texts. James Tate (1977) “brandishes” his “razor,” and Herbert Gold (1973) goes over his first draft to cut out “the loose hairs and revise.”

28

Just as tailoring involves insertion, these uses of cut or descriptions of cutting away material from the text have in common deletion and diminution. Henry Miller, with his reference to an axe, gives the impression of bold strokes, slicing away large chunks of a sturdy, rich text; he seems to assert that bold strokes cannot damage this text. William Goyen’s comment about “taking what is still living there” focuses on eliminating dead material that will hinder the growth and strength of the text. Christopher Isherwood, with his “amputate,” suggests a similar cutting away, necessary to save the text. In “amputating,” he leaves the text healthy but not really whole—cutting away parts of the living original carries heavy costs. Alex Haley directs our attention to the delicacy of revising, which must get all of his attention during his “sharpest” period, and to the importance of revising to the life of the text: Poor cutting may lead to vital material being removed or the text being scarred—perhaps even to a lifeless text.