A Quote by William Zinsser

Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional equity in our first draft; we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't.

William Zinsser

Quote Topics

Accept Believe Born Close Draft Emotional Equity Essence First Game Hard Idea Lost Odds Our Percent Perfect Rewriting Well Writing Writing Well

Quote Author

William Zinsser
American - Writer
October 7, 1922 - May 12, 2015

Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.

William Zinsser

I get ill when I'm writing because I'm so focused on it, and it can take a year or two. Often, I knock out the first draft very quickly. I can do it in five to six weeks. Then, it takes a year of rewriting it and rewriting it.

Eran Creevy

Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.

William Zinsser

Seventy percent of a first draft is garbage and 30 percent is gold, but you have to write 100 percent to get that 30.

Laurell K. Hamilton

I am a technophile, so there is no such thing as a first draft. The first draft plunges on, and about a quarter of the way through it I realise I'm doing things wrong, so I start rewriting it. What you call the first draft becomes rather like a caterpillar; it is progressing fairly slowly, but there is movement up and down its whole length, the whole story is being changed. I call this draft zero, telling myself how the story is supposed to go.

Terry Pratchett

Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospects of never publishing.

Richard North Patterson

I see myself as a first-draft writer, so when I sit down to write something, the first draft is usually pretty close to the end draft.

Noah Hawley

Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing - from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke.

John Casey

Music is, by far, the best art. Nothing even comes close. It's so immediate and emotional. In writing, maybe ninety percent of it is the unconscious and ten percent is control. In music, I think it's probably more like ninety-nine percent the unconscious. It's just a beautiful thing happening through you. And so, too, is writing a great story.

T.C. Boyle

If somebody asked for the first draft of something I'd written, it'd probably be pretty close to whatever got published. I get enjoyment out of writing, but I get absolutely no enjoyment out of rewriting, so I don't do much of it. The more you work on something, certainly, the better it gets. But there's also a pretty clear law of diminishing returns.

Chuck Klosterman

In this league, it's all about being close to 100 percent on game day.

Adam Thielen

The only thing I might have noticed [and this is pretty anecdotal] is that there is some tendency to need to be taught that 'writing is rewriting' - maybe more of a sense than was pervasive 10 years ago that the first or second pass of a story is sufficient. That is an idea that is easily dislodged, but I suspect it might have something to do with the turnaround time re: blogging and so on - this sense that there is some essential truth about a first draft that one runs the risk of "ruining" by coming back to it.

George Saunders

I'm overly confident. I believe in myself 100 percent. I believe in my game, and I believe in my work ethic.

Jaylen Brown

I see myself as a first-draft writer, so when I sit down to write something, the first draft is usually pretty close to the end draft. There will be some tweaks along the way, but it's not like I'll go 20 pages and throw it out and start again.

Noah Hawley

Here's a message to the new borns, waiting to breathe: if you believe then you can achieve. Just look at me, against all odds 'though life is hard, we carry on, livin' in the projects, broke with no lights on. To all the seeds that follow me- protect your essence, born with less, but you still precious.