This process is different from “freewriting” in a few key ways: You spend some of the time revising, you pause if you need to, and this is for something on a set topic, such as a memo or a report for work.
2. Quick revising — He sums it up this way: “The point of quick revising is to turn out a clean, clear, professional final draft without taking as much time as you would need for major rethinking and reorganizing. It is a clean-and-polish operation, not a growing-and-transforming one. You specifically refrain from meddling with any deeper problems of organization or reconceptualization.” He says “quick revising” is for when the “results don’t matter too much.”
This one raises some red flags for me because I don’t want anyone to think it’s more important for something to appear done than to actually be done. He raises some examples where it might be fine, such as with a draft of a paper to share with others, or when you plan to work on a more finished product later. Still, he says this will be used most often when people have procrastinated and are short on time.
He goes on to describe two key steps that should be taken. The first is the importance of reading your work aloud. You will hear mistakes you did not see before as you read it. He calls it switching from your “writer-consciousness and into the audience-consciousness.”
Second is the importance of cutting. As a newspaper journalist for more than 10 years I think I spent more time cutting than I did writing. That may be an exaggeration, but it sure felt that way sometimes! In that case, I was cutting due to size. But whether cutting for size or cutting because you are doing quick revising, some of the goals are the same: You are getting rid the weakest of the ideas.
Elbow writes: “Learn to leave out everything that isn’t already good or easily made good. Learn the pleasures of the knife. Learn to retreat, to cut your losses, to be chicken.”
As you can see, I have mixed feelings about this process. If it must be done, his way is as good a way as any, but better to avoid procrastination in the first place.
3. The Dangerous Method: Trying To Write It Right the First Time — It fits the name. The idea is simple: You write so well you don’t need to spend a lot of time, if any, on revising. But he warns, “it is a dangerous method because it puts more pressure on you and depends for its success on everything running smoothly”.
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