My Great Cloud of Witnesses

What to do with 60,000 Words That Still Aren't Working?

I’ve worked with so many wildly talented young writers over the years that I feel qualified to say that there are two things that separate writers who go on to publish from those who don’t.

First, a willingness to revise.

George Saunders
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain

Last week Maile and I drove through the beautiful mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky to meet up with some writing friends, folks who have been encouraging me for at least the last five years (some for the last 15). They take writing (but not themselves) seriously. They know the spectrum of writing experience: what it’s like to win awards, and what it’s like to write a book that might never find a home, that feeling of realizing a particular piece of writing might only ever be for you.

This, by the way, is one of my new requirements for writing friends. I used to be drawn to people who seemed wildly successful, who had big platforms, whose words were adored by the faceless crowds. But now I want to spend time with those who know the feeling of stacking up words upon words upon words that never leave the nest. Those of us who know about disappointing royalty statements or notices that books are going out of print. That empty and full feeling of a life dedicated to creativity and writing, no matter the outcome.

When Maile and I were driving through the mountains, passing overlooks and old trailer parks and churches with tired, leaning steeples, factories and closed stores and outdated billboards . . . a particular passage came to my mind as I thought of these friends:

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit!

This is from The Message version of Hebrews 12. Other translations mention a great cloud of witnesses, our ancestors in the faith, and that’s what this group of writers has become for me: a great cloud of witnesses. Pioneers who have blazed the way. Writers who have my back. I think of them often when I write, wondering what input they would have, what their thoughts might be. I look at their writing lives and think that if they can keep going, surely I can as well.

A photo from our meeting in 2019 (just the guys, missing Kenneth Tanner and Brent Bill).

I tell you all of this because one part of our gathering is sharing something we’re currently working on and then getting feedback on it, and I couldn’t wait to read the most recent version of a story I’ve been toying around with for the last three years or so. It’s the same story I had written 30,000 words in, brought to the group last year in the hopes they could help me figure out what felt not-quite-right, and then after getting some good questions and helpful feedback, I realized it was written in the wrong voice. 30,000 first-person words that needed to be changed to third person.

Start from scratch.

I took some time away from writing fiction in the first half of 2023, and when I picked up the manuscript again in the late summer, I began again, writing in 3rd person. And I liked where the story was going. I liked the pace. The characters were beginning to form. The words came clipping along.

I made good headway, writing 60,000 words in this new voice, this new point-of-view, and I felt content. For the most part. But I kept fiddling with it. On Saturday, our group sat together in a cozy room in a small town, the sun streaming in through large floor-to-ceiling display windows that used to be a storefront, and I took a deep breath. I shared the first 2,000 words or so.

And the words were still wrong.

I could feel it as I read the opening—they were better, closer than the year before. But something was missing, something was still clunky, like driving a car and feeling an occasional tap in the engine. Nothing catastrophic, but still, not humming, not ready.

And I felt my heart sink in the reading of them.

No, no, no. This was not what I had wanted to feel when I read it out loud—I had wanted it to feel right, feel the energy between a good story being read and those listening, like a puzzle coming together, but this was clanging in my own ears.

Maile and I went back to the room and I sat in a chair and stared at the wall and thought about what this meant, this not-rightness. More importantly, what now? Would I ever figure this out? Why was I wasting my life writing? I clearly don’t have the knack for it. I could walk away from the story, and that was certainly a temptation. Maybe I didn’t have what this story required after all.

Or I could start this story yet again, but with what changes? I didn’t even know what was off. Simply rearranging the words would get me no further. I needed to arrive at a better diagnosis than that.

No matter what, it would require so much work.

Now what?

A smaller group this year, but no less encouraging or inspiring.

That night, we piled into a car and made the trek to a neighboring town for dinner. Sitting up front with me in the car was Daniel Taylor, a writing veteran, a scholar, a teacher. A friend. He recently finished a novel for which there might not be a publishing home—one publisher told him they might be able to work it into their schedule in the next three years or so.

“I don’t have three years,” he said with a chuckle. “I might not be alive in three years.”

He’s the kind of person you can walk with on your writing journey and know that he will tell you nothing but the truth . . . if you’re brave enough to ask for it.

Are we brave enough to hear the truth about our work?

Not often. I speak from experience when I say that. But at the age of 47, with five novels under my belt, I tire of empty praise, of people telling me “it’s good.” I want the truth. Only the truth will take me further than I’ve been, further up the path.

I asked him about the piece I had read earlier that day. I lamented the fact that it wasn’t working. He asked me if I had tried writing it in first person, and I said I had, and that it didn’t work then either.

“Well,” he said, “the voice must not be the problem, because you’re running out of options there.” And he laughed. And then he made one simple suggestion.

What about action? The opening was full of beautiful, tone-setting description, and he felt he got to know the characters quickly enough. But what if something happened, something arresting? Had I considered that? Had I considered action?

That’s it, I thought to myself. So obvious. How had I missed it?

It was like being in middle school and frantically trying to undo the lock on my locker, spinning that little wheel and tugging on the lock, and it not opening, and then trying one more time, and sensing the tiny click, and then the lock comes undone.

That’s what I felt when he made that suggestion. The tiniest click.

Maybe now the lock will finally open.

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A friend at the retreat told me of a relatively well-known author, their friend, who after finishing a recent novel, sat with the manuscript, all 100,000 words of it. And this author knew it wasn’t right, not quite. It was close. They could, of course, pass it on to the publisher and chalk it up as a lesson learned, a lesser work, something they couldn’t quite wrestle down. Still good, but not as good as it could have been.

Or they could begin again.

They burned it all, deleted the document, and started from scratch.

It’s a long journey, this commitment to revision, to getting it right. Do we have the courage, the resolve, the insanity required to start again, believing this time it will turn out?

How do you feel about revising?

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And if you’re wondering what

George Saunders

’ second thing was in the quote that opened this piece, it’s causality. Which requires its own post—perhaps I’ll write that one in the near future.

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Episode 3 of Word By Word is live! Today we’re peppering Bryan Allain with questions about his writing journey, including how he’s progressing in his self-published series of middle grade books.

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