Files I Work With, #5
I did some posts a few weeks ago about the five files I keep on my screen while I’m writing. I posted four but somehow spaced out doing the fifth. My apologies (and thanks to Peter Brockwell for reminding me). Here it is now:
Dante and Virgil approaching the entrance to Hell (engraving by Gustave Dore)
I call this fifth file CULLS.
Have you ever seen an inspection station for tomatoes or potatoes? A conveyor belt shuttles the fresh-from-the-field produce past a line of human checkers (usually farm kids being paid eight bucks an hour.) The good taters and peaches sail past and get boxed up for market. The bad ones get plucked out and sent to agricultural hell.
Those are the culls.
My CULLS file contains everything I’ve cut from the manuscript I’m working on. I don’t delete anything permanently. I just stash it in literary purgatory.
Here’s why I like having a CULLS file:
1. It encourages me to cut.
It’s healthy to cut. The habit of cutting keeps you from getting precious and overly possessive. I like to cut as I go along. I’ll whack words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, entire pages and chapters.
I have two mantras as I work. The first is, “When in doubt, it’s Resistance.” The second is, “When in doubt, cut.”
I invoke the first whenever my brain presents me with some plausible pretext for sluffing off or going easy on myself. I ask myself, “Is this legitimate or is it Resistance?” Forty-plus years has taught me: it’s almost always Resistance.
I learned the second mantra from my days working in advertising. Have you ever tried to write a thirty-second commercial? Sixty words max. It’s hard. You learn to cut and you learn to love to cut.
I’ve never met any writer, myself included, who had too quick a trigger finger. We always hang on too tight. It’s not healthy.
2. A CULLS file protects me from losing any nuggets of brilliance.
The great thing about a CULLS file (combined with the “Command F” search capacity) is you can streamline your working file without permanently losing any gem you might need later. You can always find that beauty and call it back from Siberia.
How do I decide which stuff to un-cut? The unconscious decides for me. I’ll be shaving or driving on the freeway and a voice will speak up: “Remember that part where the dog bites the football? Let’s bring that back.”
Two things I’ve learned from keeping a CULLS file:
1. The file is always longer than the book. Don’t ask me why. It seems counterintuitive. But it’s true, at least for me. I’m working on a manuscript right now that’s 194 single-spaced pages. The CULLS file is 263.
2. I’ll almost never bring something back from the CULLS file. Out of 250 pages, I’ll retrieve maybe thirty or forty lines.
A couple of years ago I was reading a friend’s (published) book. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t get through it. Why? Because it was half again as long as it should have been.
Each redundant phrase, every superfluous sentence was like a tree branch that snaps back in your face as you’re hiking through the woods. What did my friend need? He needed a CULLS file and the will to use it.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
Good morning, Steven!
Loved this series…practical, try-it-now advice I can implement today for immediate results! Please keep stuff like this coming!
Question: do you save your culls in story order (by scene or act?) or just in the order you hack ’em out?
Happy Wednesday!
This is something I really needed to hear. I use Scrivener and keep everything I cut in a separate “deleted scenes” file. It is huge, and Resistance nags at me about it – “you’re doing something wrong here, you’re throwing out more than you’re keeping in.” It’s so sneaky – thanks for keeping the bright light on it Steve!
Timely and so helpful. It does make me want to get off my small laptop and over to the desktop for more room for the CULLS, but that is resistance talking!
I do this!
My first book (the one that landed me an agent) had over 200,000 words in my cut file. Agent came back and said: “Can you cut out about 80,000 more?”
Instead of “cutting words” we could all be “growing our cull file.”
In your face, Resistance.
Great idea…Do you have an organization system for the cut/culls?
I love the idea, but it might turn into a distracting mess for me?
I love the idea of a CULLS file. I do use one when I’m feeling too precious about my work as a way to tell my subconscious that we can always retrieve said cut words, phrases, scenes, chapters. Ouch. And yes, it’s all about what serves the story! Onward and forward!
These posts are so helpful! Thanks for letting us in on your process!
You say that you have never met a writer with a quick trigger finger. Do you think a writer would be more successful, theoretically, if they did?
I just cut quite a bit of my work today. Hard to do but happy with the outcome From now on I’ll keep my cuts in a file. Thanks!
Ahh…a cutting device… and an idea machine all in one…
I wonder if one could look in old cull files when deciding projects… Seems like a good idea
Hi, Steven,
I’ve been doing this all along, mainly out of vanity. Or maybe because it’s so hard to discard ANY work that took effort (no matter how questionable). It’s strangely comforting to know I can retrieve it; and of course, I never do.
A pleasure to read your advice.