One of the most difficult processes of revision is cutting (but not necessarily deleting) chapters or excerpts that you’re invested in. Those chapters may hold some personal meaning, or you may simply have spent a shitload of time writing them. Let’s say you spent a week researching every detail from which trees are indigenous to the region in which the antagonist took his vacation to the front page headlines of the Kansas City Star on November 17, 1949. Let’s say you spent a week writing it, another week polishing it, and yet another week revising it after having had it critiqued by your best friend, your Aunt Gracie, and your award-winning writers’ group. And let’s say, worst of all, that it’s really good. Tough luck. Chop it. Because if it doesn’t move the story along, doesn’t deepen the reader’s understanding of the character, or just doesn’t fit where you stuck it between Chapters 21 and 23 as a flashback that takes place within a dream sequence, it’s gotta go. But how can you make that excision while losing the least amount of blood?

1. Fist of all, when you’re writing chapters, don’t spend too much time on the details until you’re done with the entire manuscript. I know the temptation to spend hours doing research because research means you get to use the Internet (and we all want excused to use the Internet) and research means you get to put off doing any real writing. But it’s better to write “TK” (short for “tokum” an intentional misspelling of “to come”) and to come back to it later. I can’t tell you how many chapters I’ve spent weeks writing and revising to perfection only to remove them completely from my manuscript. Now when I sit down to write, I resist the urge to over-research before it’s time.

2. Second, don’t delete the chapters you remove from your manuscript. Just move them to a separate folder titled “Extra Chapters” or “Extra Scenes.” You’ll find a use for them someday, either as scenes in you next novel, as standalone pieces to be published in magazines or journals, or as fodder for other stories, chapters, and blog posts.

3. Don’t take it personally. Your writing is not you. If someone suggests you remove a section, it doesn’t mean you aren’t a good writer. In fact, it doesn’t mean that that passage is not well written. It just means that the book will work better without it. Which brings me to number four.

4. Tell that chapter to take one for the team. A book is like a team and and each individual chapter, or passage, needs to act in the best interest of that team. If that means benching it, then so be it. Give that chapter a glass of lemonade and some sunscreen. Let it watch the game. But keep it off the field until the game is won.

5. And finally, don’t get too attached to your writing. Remember the story of Rodin, who chopped off the hands of Honore de Balzac. Quoted from Laos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing:

Rodin, the great French sculptor, had just finished the statue of Honore de Balzac. The figure wore a long robe with long loose sleeves. The hands were folded in front.
Rodin stepped back, exhausted but triumphant, and eyed his work with satisfaction. It was a masterpiece!
Like any artist, he needed someone to share his happiness. Although it was four o’clock in the morning, he hastened to wake up one of his students.
The master rushed ahead with mounting excitement and watched the young man’s reaction.
The student’s eyes slowly focused upon the hands.
“Wonderful!” he cried. “What hands… Master, I’ve never seen such marvelous hands before!”
Rodin’s face darkened. A moment later Rodin swept out of his studio again. A short while later he returned with another student in tow.
The reaction was almost the same. As Rodin watched eagerly, the pupil’s gaze fastened on the hands of the statue and stayed there.
“Master,” the student said reverently,”only a God could have created such hands. They are alive!”
Apparently Rodin had expected something else, for once more he was off, now in a frenzy. When he returned he was dragging another bewildered student with him.
“Those hands… those hands…” the new arrival exclaimed, in the same reverent tone as the others,”if you had never done anything else, Master, those hands would make you immortal!”
Something must have snapped in Rodin, for with a dismayed cry he ran to a corner of the studio and grabbed a fearful looking axe. He advanced toward the statue with the apparent intention of smashing it to bits.
Horror stricken, his students threw themselves upon him, but in his madness he shook them off with superhuman strength. He rushed to the statue and with one well aimed blow, chopped off the magnificent hands.
Then he turned to his stupefied pupils, his eyes blazing.
“Fools!” he cried. “I was forced to destroy these hands because they had a life of their own. They didn’t belong to the rest of the composition. Remember this, and remember it well: no part is more important than the whole!”
And that’s why the statue of Balzac stands in Paris, without hands. The long loose sleeves of the robe appear to cover the hands, but in reality Rodin chopped them off because they seemed to be more important than the whole figure.
Neither the premise nor any other part of a play has a separate life of its own. All must blend into a harmonious whole.

What about you? How do you balance your scenes with your plot? Do you outline your plot first and then write your scenes to conform to that? Or do you write the scenes, try to cram them into a plot (the way I do), and then end up with a whole lot of deleted scenes?

1. Irregardless—this is not a word! It’s regardless, regardless of how much emphasis you want to put on it.

2. Enormity—sadly, this one is up for debate. While I contend that it can only mean “atrociousness,” some people argue that it IS standard English to use it as a synonym for “enormousness.”

3. Myriad—literally, this means 10,000, but it’s fine to use it to mean “a great number” or “innumerable.” It’s NOT fine, however, to say, “I saw a myriad of animals while on my safari.” It’s “I saw myriad animals while on my safari.” People screw this up in print all the time.

4. Begs the question—(this one courtesy of Sierra Godfrey) to be honest, I’ve never understood the correct way to use this phrase. What I know is that it is INcorrect to use it to mean “raise the question.” You can’t say, “The bank lost all my money, which begs the question whether banks are a reliable place to store money.” Here is the explanation from a website aptly titled Beg the Question:

“Begging the question” is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.

A simple example would be “I think he is unattractive because he is ugly.” The adjective “ugly” does not explain why the subject is “unattractive”—they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.

5. The reason is—You can’t say, “The reason I ate the banana is because I love fruit.” It’s “The reason I ate the banana is that I love fruit.” Thanks Glen for that one.

6. I couldn’t care less—as Glen explains in his comment on the previous Editing Hour: “Let us say care is on a scale from 0 (no care) to 10 (care very much). If my care level is at 10 I could care less. If my care level is at 0 I couldn’t care less. “I could care less for what Ralph Nader says” means you care what he says. “I couldn’t care less for what Ralph Nader says” means you don’t care what he says.”

7. Another thing coming—It’s “another think coming,” not “another thing coming,” as in, “If you think you’re staying out all night, you’ve got another think coming.” Thanks RJ Squirrel for that one.

8. Comprise/compose/consist of—You can’t say, “The team was comprised of nine players.” You CAN say, “The team is composed of nine players,” “The team consists of nine players” or “The team comprises nine players.”

9. Could of—It’s “could have,” contracted to “could’ve,” not “could of.” Seems obvious, but I see this a lot.

10. Alright—It’s not a word. It’s “all right”. Same for “alot.” It should be “a lot.”

11. Farther/Further—Farther is used for physical distance, whereas further means to a greater degree.

12. Fewer/Less- Use fewer when referring to counting nouns. Use less when referring to partitive nouns. For example, “I have fewer apples than you” but “I have less butter than you.”

13. Lie/Lay—Sad that I have to mention these, but people still confuse them. You “lie” down, but you “lay” something else down. “Lay” need a direct object. The past tense is even more confusing: “Yesterday I lay down” and before that “I had lain down” but “Yesterday I laid the dog down” and before that “I had laid the dog down.” Lie/lay/lain, lay/laid/laid. (“Lied” is the past tense of to tell a lie, not to lie down.)

14. Sit/Set work exactly the same way. You sit down, but you set something else down.

15. Rise/Raise—same thing. You rise (yourself), but you raise the flag. (rise/rose, raise/raised)

16. Inflammable—confusing, but this means that it CAN catch on fire, not that it can’t.

17. It’s/Its—The reason THAT this is confusing is that we think of possessives as having the ‘s, but in this case the possessive “its” doesn’t have an apostrophe. If it’s not short for “it is,” there’s no apostrophe.

18. i.e./e.g.—”i.e.” means “in other words,” while “e.g.” means “for example.”

19. Who/which/that—who is used for people, that for things (see that vs. which on the previous Editing Hour.

20. Nauseous/nauseated—You can’t be nauseous, unless you are emitting noxious fumes. You are nauseated, the thing that makes you feel that way is nauseous.

21. Healthful/healthy—This one is similar to nauseous/nauseated, although I admit to rarely using the word “healthful.” You are not healthy, you are healthful. The spinach you eat is healthy.

22. Toward—It’s not “towards,” just “toward.”

23. Anyway—It’s not “anyways,” just “anyway.”

24. Noone—It’s “nobody” but “no one.”

There are a gazillion words people confuse, especially if you get into homonyms like “stationary” and “stationery,” but these are some of the most common. If you think of others, please post them in comments, and I’ll add them to the list!

Next week on The Editing Hour: Is it Continual or Continuous? Disburse or Disperse? Tune in Monday to find out!

1. That vs. which—which needs a comma; that doesn’t. Which is used with parenthetical clauses, a clause that (not which!) can be removed and still have the sentence make sense. For example, “I loved the chocolate soufflé that was straight out of the oven” vs. “I love chocolate soufflé, which was straight out of the oven.” In the first example, there was more than one chocolate soufflé, so you need the clause beginning with “that.” In the second, you could eliminate everything after the comma and the sentence would remain unchanged.

2. Parallelism—when things are listed in a series, they must be parallel. For example, you can’t say, “I love to eat, to sleep and swimming.” You have to say, “I love to eat, to sleep and to swim.” Seems obvious, but in more complex sentences, people get it wrong.

3. I vs. me—I have to admit, this is my least favorite because even me screw it up, I mean I screw it up. For example, “Let’s just keep this between you and me” is correct, not “between you and I.” The rule is that when you’d use a subject, like he or she or they, you’d use “I”. When you’d use an object, like “him” or “her” or “them,” you’d use “me”. Same goes for who and whom. Who is a subject, whom is an object. But I still get confused sometimes with I and me. This is where it gets trickier: Do you say, “She is taller than me” or “She is taller than I”? Well, if the “I” is short for “I am” then it’s the latter: “She is taller than I am.” But it’s okay to say, “She is taller than me,” too. Confused? Me too. And when answering the phone, do you say, “This is she”? Yes, as awkward as is sounds. It’s correct.

4. Coordinating conjunctions, better known as FANBOYS, are: for, and, nor, but, or, yet and so. They connect two complete sentences using a comma. For example, “I want a new car, but I can’t afford one.” The only other way to connect two complete sentences is by a period and a capital: “I want a new car. I can’t afford one” or by a semicolon: “I want a new car; I can’t afford one.” In this case, only the coordinating conjunction makes sense, but grammatically, they’re all correct. The key to using the semicolon is to make sure the two sentences are closely related, like in a contrast: “Jerry likes apples; I prefer oranges.”

By the way, the best book I know on grammar is Woe is I. I use it all the time. And everyone raves about Eats, Shoots and Leaves for punctuation.

Do you have a favorite grammar book? Or a copyediting pet peeve?

1. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

2. On Writing by Stephen King

3. The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner

4-6. Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies, How to Grow a Novel and Techniques and Strategies by So Stein

7. The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman

8-9. Writing the Breakout Novel and The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great by Donald Maass

10-11. The Artist’s Way and The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

12. If You Want to Write By Barbara Ueland

13. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French

14-15. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within and Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg

16. Self-Editing For Fiction Writers: How To Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King

17. The Secret Miracle: The Novelist’s Handbook Edited by Daniel Alarcón

18. Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew by Ursula K. Leguin

19. On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser

20. Elements of Writing Fiction: Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress

21. How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them–A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman

22. The Courage To Write: How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes

23. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

24. Carolyn See’s Making a Literary Life

25. Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton

26. Word Painting: A Guide to Write More Descriptively by Rebecca McClanahan

27. Between The Lines by Jessica Morrell

28. Ron Carlson Writes a Story by Ron Carlson

29. Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee

30. The Art of Dramatic Writing by Laos Egri

31. The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch

32. How Fiction Works by James Woods

33. “Theory of Prose” by Viktor Schlovsky

34. The Prentice Hall Guide for Writers by Stephen Reid

35. A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams and Geoffrey Harpham

36. Creative Writing & Rewriting: Contemporary American Novelists at
Work, ed. by John Kuehl.

37. The Art of Subtext by Charles Baxter

38. John McPhee’s intro in the first John McPhee Reader, on his
methodology

39. The Essayist at Work, ed. by Lee Gutkind

40. Intimate Journalism: The Art and Craft of Reporting Everyday Life,
by Walt Harrington, Sage, 1997

41. Creative Nonfiction: Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life,
by Philip Gerard

42. Newsthinking, the Secret of Great Newswriting: How to Master the Pre-
writing Process to Make Your Facts Fall into Place by Bob Baker

For Grammar
43. Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, Third Edition by Patricia T. O’Conner

44. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne
Tuss