Finished writing has to sound natural, but it isn’t “just like talking.” When we talk, our listeners are aware that what we are saying is our story. As authors, we send our words out into the world without our gestures and tones of voice. When people read our words, they have to feel that what they are reading is their story. They enter it through the speaker’s way of seeing and hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. For this to feel natural, we must employ specific editing strategies that keep the reader from recognizing that what they are reading was created by someone who slaved over words. What they are reading has to seem as if it came onto the page seamlessly and effortlessly, though that is hardly ever the case. Over the years, by listening to the responses of my writing group members and book editors, who have put their fingers on places that kept them from wholeheartedly and whole-headedly entering the work, I have learned about trimming away words and phrases that interfere with the readers’ experience.

Lately, I’ve been working with Barbarann Ayars as she writes a memoir about the effects of her widowed mother placing her (and a few years later her younger brother) in an orphanage during WWII. I am pleased to have her permission to share our work together as a lesson in editing. Among the effects she relates in her memoir is a very sweet closeness with her brother. When he arrived at the orphanage, he was someone she remembered only vaguely — there had been a baby in the house, she thought, when a nun at the orphanage introduced her to the little boy, who had been dropped off at the big brick building the two would live in for years.

Even as she works to edit the whole book, she is taking portions of it and writing stand-alone essays to submit to journals. Going this route is important, as an author’s publication history motivates a publisher to take a serious look at a manuscript. In addition, having to meet word-length limits in the stand-alone essays and focus scenes and events for submission to journals forces a writer to re-see what’s already written and notice strong themes.

It isn’t essay to learn to edit your own work, and having trusted readers and sometimes professional editors is very valuable. I can truthfully say that I have learned more from editors showing me what to do than I ever did from teachers who wrote “awkward” and “wordy” in the margins of my school papers. I enjoy passing on good editing skills to my students and clients. Using the back and forth of my emails with Barbarann, I am going to demonstrate the process of editing a draft, where it can go wrong and how to make it right:

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First we’ll look at a section of Barbarann’s memoir draft. In this section, she wrote of the two children once they were out of the orphanage and living with their mother who had remarried. Here is one vignette:

We did have one other hot and heavy love. One afternoon in late winter, our stepdad took us downtown to the dry goods store to buy kites. I was given a box kite, its colors blue and red. My brother’s kite was the ordinary kind, looked like a kite, making me wonder about my own, different than anything I could understand as kite. Bobby’s kite was large, with a tail that he kept extending. His kite was yellow and looked like gold against gray skies, like lemons against the grayest blue. He tore up old bed sheets, tied strips of them at intervals all across the tail, spacing them in some sort of pattern, the sense of which only he knew. He stuck his tongue out when he was concentrating. Tying that tail had his tongue hanging in the breeze for hours on end. For him, the tail was far more interesting than getting the kite airborne. That was a good thing, considering that he added so much tail that the kite couldn’t fly. His kite spent a lot of time on the ground. However hard I tried, he steadfastly refused any advice from me, because what could I know, being a girl and all. Much to his chagrin, what I knew was how to fly a kite. Kite flying was as natural to me as fishing was to him. So I told him that what was necessary was to be able to run really fast and then to know when to release, to feel the breeze and catch it. Simple. His little legs pumped across the alfalfa field so fast I thought he’d snap them off if he fell. The kite still dragged along the ground. I snorted in disgust. Big sisters exercise their privileges.

 Flying the box was easy and fun. I knew how to run and when to release the kite to the possession of the easily read wind. The slightest breeze lifted it. I could pay out so much line that on a cloudy day the kite could hardly be seen. Little brother was not happy with this fact. The laws of males dictated that girls, especially sister types, could not fly kites with any real skill, let alone flare. Far, far into my future, the true love of my life stood on a beach with me, as chagrined as my little brother, to find I could fly a kite beyond anything he could imagine. Me. A girl! I was breaking those laws right and left. While I didn’t flaunt this talent, neither did I share it. Mitigating his concern that I was the more skilled, Bobby allowed that it must be because I had a better kite. Given his overgrown tail, that was certainly true. I was reluctant to let him handle my kite, and only hinted at the someday possibility that I might, just might, give him a pointer or two. Sometimes a sister can be such a bitch. But one day, finding myself really needing the bathroom really badly, he got lucky. My kite was flying so high I couldn’t bring myself to let it down, so he was pressed into service, to his great delight. He exhibited such self-importance to be trusted with my treasure. The sky was gray and the cloudy day made it difficult to see the kite, so he could only feel the tug of the string as the wind pulled the box higher and higher. The white string was wrapped on a stick so he could steer the kite he could hardly see. No choice here; I’d take the risk. I parked him on his bottom at the edge of the damp alfalfa field bordering our house. I stuck my finger under his nose and instructed him carefully on how to respond to the tug. I placed the stick of string in his little hands, wrapping his fingers tightly around so that he wouldn’t drop it, thereby freeing the kite to loss. He looked at me with a mixture of trepidation and wild-eyed ecstasy. Bug eyed and serious, his mouth hanging open and drooling, he sat there barely moving, feeling his hands respond naturally to the pull. I took one last studied look at him, seeing him settle into the understanding of what he must do. He was a clever boy, dexterous with very sensitive hands and wrists.

I knew he could do this; it was just a matter of someone showing him how. I backed away, crossed my fingers and tore down to the house to answer Nature. I had no idea that this was another thing I could do with rapid speed, and before I knew it, I was back beside him who had become a part of the kite. I stood there staring at him; he was in some other world. His vacant staring eyes indicated trance. He was enraptured but engaged. The kite was out of sight, invisible. Hardly aware of me, he reeled in and paid out the line in increments matching the pull; he was completely unwilling to surrender this magic. He was mesmerized, lost in it, feeling the quiet exhilaration of successfully flying the kite. Like me. The air was cool, with a light breeze whispering in the alfalfa. The winds aloft were strong and challenging to the unseen wonder at the end of the string. The rest of the world was silent. Watching his face, wide-eyed and rapt, open-mouthed and holding his breath, he was transformed. Looking at the delicate, small wrists and fingers manipulating the wind, I saw what a gift I had given him. His was an expression of rapture, and I understood immediately the magnitude of his recognition: I was ten feet tall in his sight. In his mind, he had achieved equal skill to his sister. Ever after, while lofting his kite sometimes remained elusive, I reduced his tail, gained altitude for him and let him fly his own experience, always noting his sense of wonder. He begged me to tell him the secret that made me best. I’d shrug my shoulders and he was sure I was cutting him out of the world’s most secret knowledge. I had no idea; darned if I knew. Much later in our lives, he told it to me. He said kite flying was like fishing the sky. He said it was to be found in our wrists and hands, just like he caught fish when the rest of us had empty hooks. I could feel that kite without ever seeing it, just like he felt and caught invisible fish. (Of course, I didn’t tell him that it was moronic to tie any kind of additional tail to his kite…). The joy for me, in teaching him, watching him gain the knowledge of wind speed and direction, fine tuning his own instincts, seeing joy on his face, was almost better than flying my box. Well. Almost. (1,155 words)

When I read this, I talked to Barbarann about a first step in revision of adding in dialog to engage the reader in what the kids were up to. I felt that the addition of dialog would make certain commentary unnecessary: phrases like “darned if I knew” coming after “I had no idea” and “He exhibited such self-importance to be trusted with my treasure” after “to his great delight.”

A few months after our conversation and my urging that Barbarann take on the task of making individual personal essays from her memoir draft, she read about an opportunity to submit an essay to a journal and decided to edit this particular part of her memoir draft to meet the journal’s requirements, which included a focus on geography. She set about making sure to include both dialog as I had suggested and geography:

Kite Flying With My Brother

Shortly after leaving the orphanage, we moved with my mother and her new husband to Christiana, a small town in Pennsylvania, in the heart of Amish country. It was 1945, the War was over, and many families were regrouping to find themselves. My brother and I were learning to play in a totally new environment. We were each given a kite; mine was a red and blue box type, different than anything I understood as kite. His was ordinary, with a tail. Bobby’s kite had a tail he kept extending, and was yellow like gold against gray skies. He tied strips of sheeting all across the tail, spaced in a pattern meaningful only to him. He stuck his tongue out when concentrating in earnest. Tying that tail had his tongue endlessly hanging in the breeze. The tail mattered more to him than getting the kite airborne, but made it too heavy to fly and it spent a lot of time on the ground. He stubbornly refused my advice; what could a girl know? I knew how to fly a kite. It was as natural to me as fishing was to him. One must run really fast and then know when to release, to feel the breeze and catch it. “Watch me run!” he shouted, his little legs pumping across the field so fast I thought they’d snap off if he fell. The kite dragged the ground as a five-year-old boy snorted in disgust. His black eyes grew blacker as he pouted. “Aw, who wants’a fly a ol’ kite anyway?” He folded his arms across his chest and stomped away from me.

“See how high the kite flies, Bobby?” Sticking out his lower lip, he’d shake his head, not looking. “Nope! Don’t see!”

Flying the box was easy. To run and release the kite to the carefully read wind allowed the slightest breeze to lift it. I could pay out so much line that the kite could hardly be seen. Bobby was jealous. The laws of males said girls couldn’t fly kites. In the future my true love would stand on a beach with me, chagrined to find I could fly a kite. Me, a girl! While I didn’t flaunt this talent, neither did I share it. Mitigating his concern that I was the more skilled, Bobby sulked, “You have a better kite!” True, given his overgrown tail. I hinted I might someday show him how. A sister can be such a bitch.

I really needed a bathroom call, so he got lucky. My kite was ?flying so high I couldn’t bring myself to let it down. I pressed him into service. He whispered, “You sure?” Eyes bright with anticipation, he felt important to be trusted with treasure. Cloudy skies made it difficult to see the kite. He could only feel the tug of the string as the wind pulled the box further aloft. String wrapped on a stick let him steer the invisible. Risking, I parked him at the edge of the field, telling him how to respond to the tug. “Hold the stick like this,” I said. Wrapping his little fingers tightly around the stick so he wouldn’t drop it, I freed my kite to possible loss. He looked at me with trepidation and wild-eyed ecstasy. His drooling mouth hanging open, he sat barely moving, hands responding naturally to the pull. I took one last studied look at him as he settled into his task. He was clever and dexterous, with sensitive wrists. He could do this; it was just a matter of showing him how. Backing away with crossed fingers, I turned and ran to the house.

My business done, I was quickly beside him who had become a part ?of the kite. I stood there silent, staring. He was in some other world, eyes vacant, in a trance, the kite out of sight. Unaware of me, he reeled in and paid out the line in increments matching the pull, just him and the wind. He was mesmerized, feeling the quiet exhilaration of kite flying. Just like me. A cool breeze whispered to the alfalfa, the winds aloft strong, challenging the unseen wonder at the end of the string. The rest of the world was silent. Wide-eyed and holding his breath, Bobby was transformed. Watching the delicate wrists and fingers manipulating the wind, I saw the gift I had given him. I understood immediately the magnitude of his recognition: I was ten feet tall in his sight. He had achieved equal skill to me.

Ever after, while lofting his kite sometimes remained elusive, I reduced his tail, gained altitude for him and let him fly his own experience. He begged for the secret that made me best. As I shrugged my shoulders he said doubtfully, “You’re holding out on me.” In truth, I had no idea. Later in our lives, he told me. “Kite flying”, he said, “Is like fishing the sky. The secret is held in our wrists, just like fishing the water.” I could feel that kite without ever seeing it, just like he caught invisible fish. (I didn’t tell him it was moronic to tie more tail to his kite…). (865 words)

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Reading this, I feel endeared to these two children. I like the way the focus on the kite flying allows the writer to say so much about them. I admire how this essay turns out to be about acceptance and sharing from a very deep place as the little boy allows his sister to help and she allows him to fly her kite. But most importantly, the two are a team again, with the boy no longer doing the “girls can’t” thing and the girl learning to open the way for her brother without intruding on his ego. It is resonant that this story is told in the frame of “families regrouping to find to find themselves.”

I was happy to see this description replace the “self-importance” sentence: “Eyes bright with anticipation, he felt important to be trusted with treasure.” And I liked “darned if I knew” disappearing. It seems that Bobby’s dialog “You’re holding out on me” replaces it and also draws readers in closer at that moment as the overhear the kids. That Bobby says, “You sure?” when his sister presses him into service is another place where the direct dialog means readers feel they are there with the kids rather than being told how the speaker experienced the moments.

The kids are the stars of this essay so the opening of the essay must start with them rather than the back story. I feel like the back story is there to accommodate the journal’s requirement about geography. I think a title with place name and the reference to an alfalfa field can take care of that. However, I am not sure I find out how learning to play in a new environment impacts the kite flying. Although I see alfalfa fields eventually in the draft as it is now, I am not sure how the kids feel about them in their play or how far they are from home.

In this version, I do find myself missing finding out more about the girl’s learning to fly the box (even if it turned out to be easy) since she’d never seen a kite like that at first. I miss seeing her figuring things out; while editing, I would be looking for a way to keep the reader from being distracted by a wish to see the girl learn to fly her box kite.

I am not sure how old the kids are–the boy’s little legs make him sound younger than some of the dialog (i.e. “You’re holding out on me.”) In the context of the book, I’d know their ages. As a stand-alone essay, I think there has to be a hint somewhere, or the dialog has to sound age specific.

I am not sure that the “older sisters can be bitches” and teasing is what this vignette is about, so much as it is about the two becoming close again. I don’t feel prepared to jump from the opening two large paragraphs to “I really needed a bathroom call.” I think even a phrase like, “One day, I …” or “Months later, I needed…” I feel left out of knowing how far the girl had to go to get home to the bathroom. I want to feel like I am lingering a bit longer with the girl, who has to cross her fingers and hope her little brother doesn’t crash the kite, who has to face the possibility of losing her kite. This letting go is a very important moment and I want to be in it with her–I want a moment to take in this wisdom: to help others and ourselves we have to take the risks that trust entails.

Here are some questions I have that a revision should either answer or refrain from creating as a distraction for the reader: What does it mean to read the wind? What clues and signals did the girl get? Is it odd that Bobby didn’t make the connection between the fishing he was good at and the kite flying when he was young rather than only when he was older? Could the girl understand some comparison between fishing weights and tails that he couldn’t verbalize? Where did Bobby get the sheets to make the tail? Where did he make the tail–at home or at the field where they were flying the kites? What did the sister see when she watched him make the heavy tail? What did the red and blue of her box kite remind her off–I know his yellow kite was like gold against grey skies. Mostly her kite seems to be out of sight and all the pleasure is in the feel of it at the other end of the long string; more might be made of this metaphor–she was good at flying what she couldn’t see just as he was at catching what was too deep for him to see. This seems like a rich opportunity to exploit as a writer or to let the writing bring up in the reader.

I want to hang out with these two kids. That is what is most important to me as reader. I see them regrouping inside their family, which we were told was regrouping. But since I don’t see the father and mother, I am not sure if that information helps me further appreciate what the kids are doing.

I sent these responses to Barbarann and she quickly wrote back to me:

This has to be less than 750 words. I was going for writing a moment, not a study of two orphans learning without instruction how to play with things with which they had no acquaintance…. roller skates, my first love, and kites. There had been no room among 98 other kids on a playground to fly a kite. A bow and arrows, a target, a fishing pole, a stream, these were way beyond our purview. We knew about jacks and jumping rope and not much else.

The whole goal for this shortened version is to present a girl who sees her younger brother as more than just her charge, and, perhaps for the first time, welcomes an opportunity to contribute, not to hold him off and leave him out of the very little self-affirmation she had husbanded.

I should leave out the “girls can be a bitch” line. I’m only seven myself in this story. (Precocious, no doubt, and very aware beyond my years.)

Writing dialogue for my brother is fun. I’ll do more of it.

By the way, the alfalfa field was only 100 yards from the back of our house. When it wasn’t alfalfa, the rotation crop was corn, running back to the next town (three miles away) and where Bobby happily let me get lost in it. Lost in a cornfield is NOT fun.

Now that I understood Barbarann’s intention, I went back to the draft of her memoir to see what I would edit out to keep the focus on the children and their coming together. I looked for what would answer the most important questions that were raised for me in the edited-for-length draft Barbarann had done, while keeping the writing from raising questions it had no need to answer. I saw that by starting with Bobby’s kite and making of the tail, I could help Barbarann dive right in. Interestingly, highlighting some details while taking out some of the older speaker’s commentary made me feel less in need of dialog. The details told me how to feel about the kids and their situation. I put the geography in the title, brought the alfalfa in earlier and more than once, and let the reader know the alfalfa field was next to the backyard.

1945, Christiana, Pennsylvania

My brother Bobby’s kite was a large yellow one. He tore up old bed sheets, tied strips of them at intervals all across the tail, and spaced them in a pattern, the sense of which only he knew. He stuck his tongue out when he was concentrating, and tying that tail had his tongue hanging in the breeze for hours on end. However hard I tried, he refused advice from me. What could a girl know? What I knew was how to fly a kite. It came as naturally to me as fishing did to him. I told him to run really fast and to know when to release, to feel the breeze, to catch it. His little legs pumped across the alfalfa field behind our house, so fast I thought they’d snap off if he fell. But the kite still dragged along the ground with its heavy tail.

My kite was a blue and red box; flying it was easy and fun. The slightest breeze lifted it and I flew it so high in the easily read wind that on a cloudy day, we could hardly see the kite. Little brother was not happy. The laws of males dictated that girls, especially sister types, could not fly kites, let alone with flare.

(Far, far into my future, the true love of my life would stand on a beach with me, chagrined as my little brother, to find I could fly a kite beyond anything he could imagine. Me. A girl! I was breaking those laws right and left.)

I didn’t flaunt my kite-flying talent, and Bobby allowed that it must be because I had a better kite. Given his overgrown tail, that was certainly true. I was reluctant to let him handle my kite, but one day, he got lucky. I had to go to the bathroom, and my kite was flying so high, I couldn’t bring myself to let it down. Much to his delight, I pressed Bobby into service and parked him on his bottom at the edge of the field. He couldn’t see the kite because of clouds and would have only the tug of the white string and the stick it was wrapped around to go by, to steer as the wind pulled the box higher and higher. I stuck my finger under his nose, placed the stick of string in his little hands, wrapped his fingers tightly around so that he wouldn’t drop it, and instructed him carefully on how to respond to the tug. He looked at me with a mixture of trepidation and wild-eyed ecstasy, as I freed the kite to possible loss. Bug-eyed and serious, mouth open and drooling, I saw his hands respond naturally to the pull. He was a clever and dexterous, with sensitive wrists. I knew he could do this, like fishing the sky, he would describe it years later. I backed away, crossed my fingers and tore down to the house to answer Nature. I had no idea that this was another thing I could do with rapid speed, and before I knew it, I was back beside him who had become a part of the kite, which was still out of sight. He reeled in and paid out the line in increments matching the pull; he was mesmerized, lost in the flying, feeling the quiet exhilaration of his success. Like me.

Amidst the light breeze whispering in the alfalfa, I saw the gift I had given him. I understood the magnitude of his recognition: I was ten feet tall in his sight. In his mind, he had achieved equal skill to his sister. Ever after, I reduced his tail, gained altitude for him and let him fly his own experience. He begged me to tell him what made me best. I’d shrug my shoulders; he was sure I was cutting him out of some very secret knowledge. But I had no idea; darned if I knew. What I did know, though, watching him fine tune his own instincts and gain the knowledge of wind speed and direction, was that seeing the joy on his face was better than flying my box. Well. Almost. (699 words)

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I asked Barbarann to tell me what she noticed about my editing, and she wrote:

I find this version tight and clean and very good reading, without losing any of the flavor that makes it so tasty to begin with! I typed the essay out into a separate document so I could see it clearly, and I see the merit of an economy of words without losing flavor or continuity. Stripping away words that clog the flow, polishing to crystal clarity without sacrificing the impact of a young girl’s gift to a little brother is successful editing to burnish a lovely story without reducing it to bare bones.

I especially like the new opening; describing Bobby’s kite puts the reader right into the story. I immediately see a child making the kite his own, see his tongue hanging out and feel his level of concentration. No words are wasted and all of them are used like a fork at a good meal. Yum!

I am happy to see the reinsertion of parts I had left out to keep the word count pared, a clear application of an editor’s skill taking out and putting in parts that maximize or minimize the story. (Reliving this on a beach far into my future is a nice capture). The editing strengthens the story without forfeiting its meaning. Here is a picture of a dominant sister experiencing the joy of elevating a small boy’s skills to match her own. So it’s true: giving is better than receiving.

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This is not the only way this draft could be reduced to word-length. There is probably a way to include the dialog and still make the essay fit in the 750 word-length limit. But this edited version does create less screening between the writer telling the story and the story itself.

A big lesson in editing is this one: the details we choose (and that is sometimes in the form of dialog) and the scenes we write to deliver that detail communicate our attitude toward our material. We don’t have to introduce commentary or make things “tony” to do that work. We do have to notice which details are most valuable and choose among them. Here, that Bobby’s kite was yellow contrasts nicely with the speaker’s kite being red and blue. We can put together how bright the yellow would have seemed in the grey day once we know it is cloudy, especially when the kite is lying on the ground with its heavy tail. It would be bright whether it flew or didn’t. The spiritedness of the young speaker is clear as is that she remained that way–the parenthetical remark about her impressing a young man with her kite flying skill shows us that. That Bobby, the good fisherman, senses that kite flying is like fishing, once his sister shows him how to use his wrist, comes through now. In this version, though he gets it, he is too young to articulate the idea. Allowing the reader to know that much later he shares his comparison makes for a nice parallel to the speaker’s updating the reader on her future time at the beach flying a kite.

With details, if they are the right ones, a little goes a long way; so we can look at tightening our writing, even when it is by a lot, as device for strengthening the impact of the work’s essence. Rather than seeing what we are doing as chopping words, we can see it as cleansing the writing of phrases that don’t add to the information the reader has already received. It is as if we put our words through a filter and let the unneeded ones collect on one side, while the ones we do need filter through, sometimes reorganizing themselves. When we have the freedom to write longer, we can see if adding dialog and more scenes and characters helps us enlarge our telling of the tale we want to tell.

Whether book-length or essay-length, writing needs to be tight to help the reader forget that the writing is a made thing and instead become immersed in the story as if they are living it, too. If you decide to hire editing help, be sure to have the editor start by taking on a short piece or excerpt first so you can evaluate the editor’s approach regarding adding, reordering and taking away. You want to feel that the editor gets the story, listens to you and can help you use your own words to bring your story to life.