Rewriting isn't just about dialogue; it's the order of the scenes, how you finish a scene, how you get into a scene.
Interpretation
Rewriting is essential in creating a cohesive and impactful narrative in storytelling.
This quote by Tom Stoppard emphasizes the importance of rewriting in the creative process, particularly in writing. It suggests that rewriting goes beyond just refining dialogue; it encompasses the overall structure, pacing, and transitions of scenes, which are crucial for effective storytelling. Stoppard highlights that careful consideration of how scenes are organized and presented can greatly enhance the narrative and its emotional impact on the audience.
In practice
In a writing workshop, I shared Stoppard's quote to emphasize the necessity of revisiting our drafts.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.
I was interested in ideas, not merely visual products. I wanted to put painting once again at the service of the mind.
Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important.
Tradition is the great misleader because it's too easy to follow what has already been done - even though you may think you're giving it a kick. I was really trying to invent, instead of merely expressing myself.
I've been around long enough for people to know who I am and what my contributions are. They know me as more than just an artist. I think they know me as a woman as well.
Time, which despoils castles, enriches verses.
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