Revision | Kaelan

Writing is rewriting. The first draft is just material. The quality happens in revision.

People resist this because it feels like failure. If you were a good writer, the first version would be right. But Hemingway rewrote the ending of A Farewell to Arms 47 times. The difference between amateurs and professionals isn’t the first draft. It’s the willingness to keep going.

Here’s why first drafts are always rough: you’re explaining the idea to yourself.

You’re discovering what you think as you write. The structure is tangled because your understanding is still forming. The sentences are baggy because you’re talking yourself through the logic.

Once you know what you mean, you can say it directly. But you can’t know what you mean until you’ve tried to say it.

I’ve learned to separate drafting from editing. They’re different mental modes.

The drafting mind is generative. Let it flow. Don’t stop to fix sentences. Don’t judge. Get words on the page.

The editing mind is critical. Does this sentence work? Is this word right? Does this section earn its place?

If you try to do both at once, you get stuck. You write a sentence, critique it, delete it, write again. The inner editor kills the inner writer.

I do multiple passes, each with a different focus:

Structural pass. Does it flow? Is the argument clear? Move, cut, or expand sections. Don’t worry about sentences yet — you might delete them.

Paragraph pass. Does each paragraph do one job? Does it connect to the next? Cut paragraphs that don’t advance the argument.

Sentence pass. Now the line-editing. Cut unnecessary words. Vary sentence length. Make each sentence pull its weight.

Word pass. Final polish. Is each word the right word? Can you find a concrete word for an abstract one?

The order matters. Don’t polish sentences you’re about to delete.

Some techniques for seeing your own work:

Time. Put the draft away. Return tomorrow. Fresh eyes see what tired eyes miss.

Read aloud. Your ear catches what your eye skips. Where you stumble, the reader stumbles. Where you run out of breath, the sentence is too long.

Change the format. Print it. Read it on a different device. The unfamiliarity shakes you out of autopilot.

What to cut:

Throat-clearing. The first paragraph is often warmup. The real start is buried.

Hedging. “I think that perhaps it might be possible that…” Say it or don’t.

Redundancy. Saying the same thing twice in different words.

Abstraction where concrete would work. “Precipitation” vs “rain.”

Adverbs doing no work. “Very important” — cut “very.” If the base word isn’t strong enough, find a stronger word.

The test: remove it and see if meaning is lost. If not, it stays removed.

Cutting hurts. You wrote those words. They feel like you.

But revision isn’t about you. It’s about the reader. Every word you keep, they have to process. Every word you cut saves them effort.

The shorter piece feels more authoritative. Tight prose signals confidence. You could have said more. You chose not to.

Go Deeper

Books

On Writing by Stephen King — “Kill your darlings.”
Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg — A book about sentences and the patience to get them right.