The Wonderful Thing About Line Edits

single light bulb

Today’s post is by regular contributor Peter Selgin, the award-winning author of Your First Page. He offers first-page critiques to show just how much useful critical commentary and helpful feedback can be extracted from a single page—the first page—of a work-in-progress.


First Page

I opened the basement door when I got home from grade school. In the light of a single bulb, my mother thrashed around lifting dirty laundry from knee-high piles sorted into whites, light-colored, dark-colored, work clothes, jeans, and bedding. The odor of dirty wash water, bed-wetted sheets, and dank basement flowered. Twelve steps, no railing, led down.

“Mom, I got a reading certificate from Mrs. Larsen.”

I held it up, a half-sheet of paper listing thirteen titles for the 1960-61 school year.

“Hmm,” she muttered to the spinner as she yanked out a wad of wet clothes.

My mother used a two-part washing machine with a separate agitator and spinner. As she washed, she stockpiled clothes in tubs on the concrete floor while the wash water turned thick gray before going through the whole cycle again for rinsing.

“The certificate has a gold star,” I said, waving it like a wand as I picked my way down the stairs.

“Uff,” she said and lugged my father’s work clothes out of the spinner.

Every Monday, she twirled her lush brown hair into two rows of pin curls and wrapped a red silken scarf around her head. But now, some of the hairs escaped. It was 3:30 p.m. She’d been washing clothes all day, hanging them on the line to dry, and folding clean laundry into precise piles on the dining room table. We had a neighbor who washed at night and hung her first load of laundry out bright and early in the morning, but my mother would never stoop to that kind of laundry-mandering. No. She had integrity in her washing protocols. Monday was wash day. Not Sunday night and Monday.

Now, she surged to the finish with only two more loads to hang on the line before she could brush out her pin curls, put on some lipstick, and whip up a meal in time for a 5 p.m. supper when my father got home.

I knew she was busy. She always was. It wasn’t easy to be a post-war wife in Middle America with the high demands of housewifery bearing down on her.

The certificate flagged in my hand.

I stood beside her, fidgeting with the shiny silver toggle on the spinner. I’d heard a confounding female fact on the playground that day.

I said, “Where do babies come from?”

The tie on the top of her head waggled. She paused, both arms deep in the spinner.

“From a mother’s stomach.”

That was not a satisfactory answer to my seven-year-old mind, not even an S-minus answer, the shaming grade I tried to avoid on my report card.

I said, “Marlys—her mother just had another baby—said they come from a uterus and that they’re born out of a vagina.”

My mother snapped her face towards me.

“That little snot,” she said and sneered at the spinner.

She hit the switch. The spinner whirled in a whiny din as the water poured then trickled from the reddish-pink drain hose. She grabbed the metal perforated spinner basket still spinning. It jerked to a stop, and she wrenched my father’s green work clothes from the cylinder.

“Do they?” I said.

“Do they what?” she said, as she heaped the laundry basket high and mounded as a full-term pregnancy.

“Do they come from a uterus and get born from a vagina?”

These were big words. Maybe my mother didn’t know them. Maybe Marlys was wrong. Marlys was Catholic after all, and as such, her veracity was questionable by worthy Lutherans such as us.

I remained silent. Good thing. Or I might not have heard her exhale a prolonged weary “yes.”


First-Page Critique

When I met with my mentor in his Greenwich Village duplex, we’d sit side by side at his dining room table walled in by hundreds of books. Armed with his trusty Mont Blanc, Don Newlove slashed through my sentences, slathering them with ink, making me read my version first, then his, and tell him why his was better!

For about eight months we did this, until I bridled at my mentor’s “improvements.” By then it hardly mattered, since I’d learned most of what Don had to teach me, which boiled down to this: Never let a dead, droopy, or sawdusty sentence—a sentence not worth reading once, let alone twice—stand. In those eighteen months, thanks to Don I became the next best thing to a poet: a stylist.

I chose this first page as the last of this series of critiques (I’m taking a break) since I felt it was pretty strong and wanted to end on a positive note. That said, it can stand improvement. At the macro level it suffers from a blurred or misplaced focus: the reading certificate isn’t the point of the scene, really; the fact learned on the playground is. The certificate is just a subterfuge or decoy. But unless we know that up front our attention is misdirected, and the scene’s source of tension is lost.

Rather than discuss the page, for this last critique instead I thought I’d do for it what Donald Newlove used to do for me: revise line-by-line. Some of my revisions come down to cutting, changing, or moving a word or two; others are more substantial. The point of line edits isn’t to say, “My way is better!” (though Don’s revisions usually were), but to give a fellow author the gift of a fresh pair of eyes and ears and alternatives to reflect upon. The great thing about line edits: unlike many gifts, they can be accepted or rejected as one sees fit.

Compare my revision with the original. Even if you don’t agree with my changes, you might consider why I made them. Is the sentence in the right place? Does it land on its feet, i.e. with the most important part saved for last? Does it say things that might be better left implied? Is it true? Substantial? Relevant? Concise? Grammatical? Elegant?

Finally, assuming you agree that the original page here wants some revising, how would you revise it differently, while still preserving the author’s style and voice?


Revision

I opened the basement door. Under the light of a single bulb, my mother thrashed around, lifting dirty laundry from knee-high piles, sorting it into plastic tubs: whites, lights, darks, work clothes, jeans, bedding. Smells of wash water, bed-wetted sheets, and dank basement flowered. Twelve steps—no railing—led down. I’d come home from school with something on my mind and something in my hand.

“I got my reading certificate from Mrs. Larsen,” I announced, brandishing the half-sheet of paper listing thirteen titles for the 1960-61 school year.

“Hmm,” Mom muttered to the spinner. She yanked out another wad of wet clothes.

“It’s got a gold star,” I said, waving the certificate as I picked my way down the stairs.

“Uff.”

Mom yanked Dad’s work overalls out of the spinner. She used a two-part machine with a separate spinner. Before going through each rinse cycle the water turned thick gray. Monday mornings, she’d twirl her lush brown hair into twin rows of pin curls and wrap it under a red silk scarf. By now some of the hairs escaped. It was 3:30. She’d been doing laundry all day. Our neighbor, Mrs. Fisk, washed on Sunday nights and hung her first loads out bright and early Monday mornings. Mom would never stoop to such laundry-mandering. She had integrity. Monday was wash day. Not Sunday night. Monday. With only two more loads to hang before she brushed out her pin curls, smacked on some lipstick, and whipped up a meal by five p.m., when my father got home, Mom surged to the finish. To be a wife in post-war Middle America wasn’t easy.

I stood next to her, my right-hand fidgeting with the silver toggle on the spinner, my left clutching the drooping certificate, remembering the confounding fact I had learned from Marlys during recess. I asked:

“Where do babies come from?”

Mom paused, both arms deep in the spinner. The tie on the top of her head waggled.

“From a mother’s stomach.”

To my seven-year-old mind this was not even an S-minus answer.

“Marlys said they come from a uterus and that they’re born out of a vagina.” (Marlys mother had just had another baby—her fifth.)

My mother snapped her face towards me. “That little snot.”

She hit the switch. With a whiny din, the spinner whirled. Gray water poured then trickled from the reddish-pink hose. She grabbed the perforated, still spinning basket, jerked it to a stop, and wrenched Dad’s overalls from its maw.

“Do they?”

Your First Page Selgin

“Do they what?” Mom heaped laundry.

“Come from a uterus and get born from a vagina?” These were big words. Maybe Mom didn’t know them. Maybe Marlys was wrong. Marlys was Catholic, after all, and as such questionable by worthy Lutherans like us. The din ended. A good thing, or I might have missed Mom’s weary reply:

“Yes.”


Your turn: How would you assess this opening? (Be constructive.)

Note: The publisher of Your First Page is offering free shipping if you order the book directly from their site. Use code YFPfreeship.

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jon

Peter;

As usual, your examples are exemplary but if nothing else we should realize that these first page critiques are attempted without the benefit of the context or perspective that an editor would normally enjoy. Consequently, we’re left in a sort of vacuum with two primary options: assumption or acceptance. Assumption, in that we edit assuming that the author really meant this or that (which meaning(s) we hope and expect the author will reveal in future pages) or acceptance, in that we regard the author’s intent in situ. It’s not unusual for the lines between editing and rewriting to blur.

In this example, I would choose to analyze the first page thus:
1. The child arrives home from school elated about the reading award achievement and confounded about the origin of babies.
2. Mom is distracted as she endures the soulless labor of laundry in the Dickensian dungeon of a clammy cellar.
3. Child wants attention. Child has two options: (a) Get recognition and validation from Mom by flaunting the gold starred reading award and/or, (b) Get attention by broaching the subject of the conundrum of the origin of babies. To me, neither strategy is prominent: Getting Mom’s attention is the objective.

Your editing/rewrite tightens up nicely, but I would go a bit further considering that, as we are regarding these paragraphs in isolation, the first page should be the equivalent of a “lead”. So:

“Mom yanked Dad’s work overalls…” Delete this entire paragraph. There’s some valuable stuff that might be used to advantage further on, but here it’s at best digression and at worst filler – neither of which are appropriate in a lead. Reserve this paragraph or parts (or exposition of parts) of it for page two or three or…? As an example, the tension between Mrs. Fisk and Mom could be exploited to advantage in pages following.

“I stood next to her, my right-hand fidgeting with the silver handle on the spinner…” Delete the remainder of this sentence. The momentum is somewhat arrested by the following exposition. That the “fact” is confounding is being brought out in the dialog. Where and when this question arose is immaterial. The implication is that it occurred either at or in going to or from school. Marlys will soon be identified as the informant. And that our protagonist is “fidgeting with the spinner” implies indecision and consideration of the “baby origin” tactic to get attention.

“To my seven year-old mind…” If I had my druthers, I’d delete this sentence as well. That it is not a sufficient answer is at least somewhat redundant because the insufficiency is borne out by the following dialog, but if it is really necessary to establish right now that the protagonist is seven years old, then this could be as good a place as any to inform the reader.

Happy hiatus and festivus

Cathy Cade

As a reader, with no claim to editing expertise, I prefer the original version of…
“Now, she surged to the finish with only two more loads to hang on the line before she could brush out her pin curls, put on some lipstick, and whip up a meal in time for a 5 p.m. supper when my father got home.”
…to the rewrite. It gives a better impression of a race as the different obstacles are overcome to reach the end. We almost speed up our reading as we near the end of the sentence.

This is lost in the rewrite as we only have the racing reference at the end…
“With only two more loads to hang before she brushed out her pin curls, smacked on some lipstick, and whipped up a meal by five p.m., when my father got home, Mom surged to the finish. ”
Also, I feel there is too much between the beginning and end of the sentence: “With only two more loads to hang, … Mom surged to the finish. ” It makes for a clumsy read.

Peter Selgin

I agree that something is gained by putting the headline (“She surged to the finish”) up front, but then something is also lost by following that headline up with a qualifying clause rather than with actions (“hanging two more loads, brushing out her pin-curls, putting on lipstick, whipping up a meal”…). By putting the qualifying clause (“With only two more loads to hang …)” first, a different kind of tension is created to hook readers in to the headline end of the sentence. But it’s a choice. I think a thing to do in this situation is to read both sentences out loud — preferably to an audience (an audience of one will do), and see which sentence holds more tension and ends more emphatically. With the original version, the emphasis isn’t on the mother racing through her chores, but on her motivation for doing so (“… when the father got home.”).

Ron Seybold

Becoming a stylist might be easier than becoming a storyteller. Whatever we editors can do for authors at 3 cents per word is worth it to the writer, so long as we preserve their voice while sweeping the sawdust out of the sentences — and it includes resets at the start of stories so they have a chance to landing in the reader’s heart.

Regarding the red-pen sessions, it’s good advice this column could have taken to heart. It’s more entertaining to see the line edits as Word presents the changes, with revisions and deletions and insertions visible. My authors don’t want to see these, for the most part. But I keep a log. Dave King writes this kind of column with the changes on display.

K.D.

Peter’s “check-list” near the end of the analysis is instructive, especially the directive to put the most important idea at the end of a sentence. I wonder if the most important idea in the sentence discussed by Peter and Cathy (the mother surging to the finish so she could be ready when the husband comes home) is the husband. Sure, the wash needs to be done, but a mid-century woman’s survival, both economic and social, depends on a husband.

What Peter calls two ploys—reading certificate v. biological imperative—may not be a blurred or misplaced focus but an intentional hint at the tracks (academic or domestic) available to this girl in a subculture where the two do not co-exist. I suspect the writer intends this bifurcation. Whether her strategy works or not is another thing. She might want to write a different opening or massage this one so that it is clear and focused.

Interesting discussion on what the protagonist of this memoir wants. Jon suggests she wants her mother’s attention. That seems likely, but I’m curious about what lies behind that quest. Perhaps she wants to be seen for her fledgling sense of self. Perhaps she wants a secure base, derived in part from her mother’s honesty. For the moment, the daughter accepts the role of helper in all its 1950s glory—white wash, spotless house, etc., but savvy 21st-century readers know that the subservience of this era will soon become untenable, perhaps a nod to trouble ahead.

Given that this is a memoir rather than fiction, I’m curious about suggested cuts to move the story forward. Would these cuts eliminate the fleeting moments of reflection? Does it matter at this point?

The writer tends to use several words when one will do, and Peter’s rewrite gets rid of these. He’s also replaced some weak words with stronger ones (brandish, maw). The writer will have to decide if these maintain voice.

The neighbor, unnamed in the original and now Mrs. Fisk, raises the question of who does and doesn’t get a name. Is this neighbor a stock figure? If yes, would she still be named? Marlys does get named, which suggests she will show up at critical junctures in the story

Much of the above, though shoulder to shoulder with Peter’s goal of providing line edits, is separate. His line edits tighten the piece and instruct the writer.