Raymond Carver

Antilles

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/12/24/071224on_onlineonly_carver

I've always admired Raymond Carver's succinct writing style. Today I found this link to his story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," except it's not. The article shows Carver's original story "Beginners," as well as the changes his editor suggested to bring it to the final version. In my opinion the edited version is far superior.

It made me feel much better about my own writing

marty1985

I bought his book Beginners recently, which is the original version of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, right?

I'm kind of new to his work, but had known some of his poetry before. His poetry was excellent. I love some of the stories in the book. Enjoying it a lot.

Kinski

Antilles wrote: »

In my opinion the edited version is far superior.

It made me feel much better about my own writing

Agreed. All any of us need now is a hotshot editor from The New Yorker to go over our work, and we'll be sorted!:p

JaneHudson

I can't believe how much was chopped out of it! Definitely an eye-opener. How did you find that post and where can I read more like it?

harrythehat

I was reading the introduction to Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London' today and one of the pieces of advice his editor gave him was that he had great descriptive power but that it got tiresome reading pages of it when it would have been fine after a few lines.

It is, indeed, comforting to know that even the greats have benefited from this kind of advice.