Pieces of String too Short to Save: Author's Cuts
I can't remember where I first heard the story, but it went something like this:
An old woman had died. Her son was given the unenviable task of executor of her estate. Unfortunately for him, his mother was an old-school packrat, saving anything and everything that might have use in the far-off future. Stacks of yellowed newspaper towered throughout the house, cardboard boxes that had been eaten by silverfish lay in dusty piles against every wall. The closets burst with clothing, more boxes, mouldering books, and receipts from fifty years ago. It seemed an insurmountable task, but the son persevered.
While cleaning out the kitchen pantry full of expired food and home remedies, the son came upon a shoebox with a yellowed strip of masking tape stuck on the lid. In spidery handwriting, he read, Pieces of String too Short to Save. And yes, the box was full of pieces of string, some of them less than an inch long.
The idea of keeping a box full of useless string intrigued me. I keep every word I write, whether I end up using it in the final version of the story or not. Hundreds of snippets, cuts, and rewrites sit in my computer's files. I have two twenty gallon Rubbermaid containers full of old stories, mouldering away.
But I keep every cut sentence, paragraph, or page, for posterity, if nothing else. And they sit. Some of the cut scenes are just as good as the finished stories. Others are interesting to examine to see how the end result differed from the original. Still others are mere ideas, likely never to see the light of publication... save for here.
Eventually, I will post my files of snippets in some sort of organized fashion, for anyone interested to peruse. Since the cut scenes are just clogging my wips folder, they might as well be put to use here.
I intend to explain a bit about the snippets I post, and try to examine why the idea didn't work or why the scene got cut. A "Director's Cut" version of the story, if you will. Hopefully someone will be interested enough in my writing process to make this page useful.
Stay tuned.
An old woman had died. Her son was given the unenviable task of executor of her estate. Unfortunately for him, his mother was an old-school packrat, saving anything and everything that might have use in the far-off future. Stacks of yellowed newspaper towered throughout the house, cardboard boxes that had been eaten by silverfish lay in dusty piles against every wall. The closets burst with clothing, more boxes, mouldering books, and receipts from fifty years ago. It seemed an insurmountable task, but the son persevered.
While cleaning out the kitchen pantry full of expired food and home remedies, the son came upon a shoebox with a yellowed strip of masking tape stuck on the lid. In spidery handwriting, he read, Pieces of String too Short to Save. And yes, the box was full of pieces of string, some of them less than an inch long.
The idea of keeping a box full of useless string intrigued me. I keep every word I write, whether I end up using it in the final version of the story or not. Hundreds of snippets, cuts, and rewrites sit in my computer's files. I have two twenty gallon Rubbermaid containers full of old stories, mouldering away.
But I keep every cut sentence, paragraph, or page, for posterity, if nothing else. And they sit. Some of the cut scenes are just as good as the finished stories. Others are interesting to examine to see how the end result differed from the original. Still others are mere ideas, likely never to see the light of publication... save for here.
Eventually, I will post my files of snippets in some sort of organized fashion, for anyone interested to peruse. Since the cut scenes are just clogging my wips folder, they might as well be put to use here.
I intend to explain a bit about the snippets I post, and try to examine why the idea didn't work or why the scene got cut. A "Director's Cut" version of the story, if you will. Hopefully someone will be interested enough in my writing process to make this page useful.
Stay tuned.
posted by Jennifer at 2:44 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home