Writing and Gardening

Photo by Michèle Lippus (Unsplash)

Writing and Gardening have a lot in common.

Since childhood, I’ve cherished the scene in Frances Hodgson’s The Secret Garden, where the three children stand outside the door in the wall they’ve uncovered.

The rusty key goes into the ancient lock and they push into an overgrown garden, full of surprises, birds, animals, and thick with promise.

Our life had been rich and thick like that orchard.

One day we had the same experience. We knew the garden was there. We could see the thick, thatchy overgrown orchard through the deer fencing.

The family stood outside the gate as my husband shoved it open. Armed with pruners, loppers, saws, gloves, and masks, we pushed in with curiosity.

What types of trees grew in that orchard seven years neglected?

A neglected garden and a manuscript in need of pruning.

I’m remembering it all today because I have another garden that needs pruning: the recently completed rough draft of a novel.

The valiant words of a teaching assistant from my freshman composition class at UCLA are ringing in my ears: “Cut out the deadwood!”

I didn’t completely understand her meaning until I faced an overgrown orchard.

Suddenly it all made sense.

To grow good fruit, trees need to be pruned regularly. An arborist wants to get light and air into the center, the heart, of the tree.

Pulling off small fruit early in the production cycle, “thinning,” allows the remaining fruit to receive more light, water, and air so it can grow larger and more succulent. Sweeter, too.

I spent thirty hours in that orchard, armed with saws and pruners. I stood back and considered each tree in turn. What wood was healthy? What boughs and limbs needed to go?

The more I cut away, the clearer it became.

Some trees gave up their deadwood easily, relieved to have it lopped off. Other trees were not so sure and the saw bit and plowed to slice off limbs that pulled down the tree, distracted from the tree’s beauty, or simply made it hard to reach healthy fruit.

Some trees looked spindly and denuded when I finished.

Others looked relieved.

The next year, we got a bumper fruit crop.

But what about the manuscript?

I’m reading through my manuscript now, making notes, changing things, recognizing angles I put in unawares, and relentlessly cutting out all the dead writing–words that clutter the read, rather than refresh it.

No saws this time, unless I have to remove an entire scene. Right now it’s nipping and tucking, trying to get a sense of the overall story, and how the plot interacts.

On a tree, you have to choose between overlapping limbs. Which one is the healthiest? Which will let in the most light?

It’s the same with a manuscript: this line may be terrific but what if it rubs against another, or undercuts an idea?

It’s my task to figure out the strongest, healthiest line–the one that moves my story forward in the best way.

I was 2500 words over my target of 50,000, so pruning, even lopping, needed to be done. I found several paragraphs that went nowhere or duplicated other scenes.

WhenI pulled out the saw, er, hit the delete key, the word count fell.

How do writing and gardening apply to a manuscript?

As in my garden, I began slowly, thinking as I went.

I did a “find” search of words I overuse: “really, so, some, very, that.”

I examined each sentence containing those words: writing and gardening, basically, as I read.

As I considered how to strengthen the sentence, I often pulled it out altogether. Just deleting words and making other minor alterations reduced the word count by 1700 words.

I can now see the manuscript as a whole, better, and I’m ready to pull out, reorganize and cut more.

It feels good.