Revision Quote by Pamela Erens

I think a lot of the dull parts of first drafts come from a kind of over-managing, intrusive writer who wants to direct traffic.…

— Meg Wolitzer

“Whenever I write first drafts, I like to maximize the possibility of f-ups, mistakes, mis-written words, digressions, crazy changes in tone, etc. This is…

— Jeff VanderMeer

“First drafts don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be written.”

— Anonymous

“First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge & enhance an idea,…

— Bernard Malamud

Maybe other writers have perfect first drafts, but I am not one of them. I always try to get the book as tight as…

— Sarah Dessen

The only thing I might have noticed [and this is pretty anecdotal] is that there is some tendency to need to be taught that…

— George Saunders

Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline…

— Ted Solotaroff

Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft to the…

— Richard North Patterson

I write a ridiculous number of drafts. The characters change and grow through the drafting, and my understanding of them deepens. Creating characters in…

— Robert Boswell

So much of writing is about what characters don't say, and in the early drafts, sometimes things get overwritten.

— Peter Hedges

Only in very rare circumstances will you see something cut out of my first drafts. Maybe it's because of the way I write. I'm…

— R. A. Salvatore

It's one of the things writing students don't understand. They write a first draft and are quite disappointed, or often should be disappointed. They…

— Elizabeth Hardwick