The other day I was revising an essay, moving paragraphs around with keystrokes and trying to keep the entire structure in mind. It was my usual process — except that it wasn’t working. The piece was a muddle. I had lost my way. What I wanted was to see the article in its entirety. What I wanted was old school, a process dimly remembered from my past. It was bold. It was rash. I did it anyway.
I printed the article, grabbed the scissors and cut those 1,500 words into a dozen paragraphs.
Can I tell you how good this felt? It was tactile; it was real. I was in charge again, putting the words in their place. It was a controlled version of document shredding, of ripping the piece up and starting over again. But it was better, because I knew the meaning was buried in there somewhere. I just had to find it.
Next, I laid the strips out on the kitchen table. (Forget the desk; this required a large, uncluttered surface.) I tried all sorts of combinations. I pulled sections out and put them in again. I moved the ending to the middle and the middle to the end.
It was a mess at first — I’d lose a paragraph and find it stuck to my arm — but it was a good kind of mess, creative clutter. It was the perfect way to get “unstuck.” I could see the text from beginning to end. I could see what needed to come out. Sentences could be sliced and diced, paragraphs could be atomized. I was not just murdering my darlings; I was chopping them up and feeding them to the wood chipper.
Meanwhile, the words that were left became a big puzzle I worked from the outside in. I firmed up the lead and conclusion, then fleshed out the middle. I could see now where the transitions needed to be, so I drafted those and added them to the mix.
Only then did I take out the tape (paste is too messy) and attach the pieces in their new order. The revised manuscript looked strange but was easy to manipulate. When I discovered sections that didn’t fit, I just peeled them off and attached them elsewhere. By the end of the afternoon I had a messy kitchen table — and a new working draft.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not planning to ditch my computer anytime soon. Cutting and pasting isn’t for everyone — or for every article. But there are times when the old methods still work, when actually touching the words brings their mystery and magic alive again.