The First Draft’s Burial

The Art of Revision

I had to cut a three-page description of a garden this morning. It was, quite possibly, some of the most beautiful prose I have written all year. But it was slowing the story to a crawl. It was an ornament, not a foundation.

Revision is often a process of mourning. We fall in love with our own cleverness, but the story doesn’t care about our cleverness. It only cares about its own truth. To make a story last, you must be willing to bury the parts of it you love the most if they are standing in the way of the light.

The Monroe Minute
Find your “favorite” sentence in your current draft. If the story can survive without it, delete it.

Until the next page,
Sloane S. Monroe

Sloane Shay Monroe

I don’t write to idealize love, but to explore it honestly, with emotional precision and depth.