The writer should never forget that he is also a reader, though a prejudiced one, and if he cannot read his own work a dozen times he can scarcely expect a reader to look at it twice. Likewise, what bores him after the sixth reading is quite liable to bore a reader at the first, and what pleases him after the twelfth may please the reader at the second. Most of my stories have been rewritten a dozen times, a few of them fifty times.
From The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story (Melville House Publishing, 2004) at 211.
2 comments:
This is excellent advice. I am going to print out this page and tape it to my forehead when it comes time for rewrites.
Great quote. thanks for sharing!
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