First Pages Questions for Editing

What is the relationship between the substance of a novel and the surface through which it’s expressed? In this paper, three researchers who write fiction, edit fiction, teach creative writing and research creative writing methodologies share revisions to their “first pages” – whether these are the first pages written in a novel project, or the introductory material of their final publications – to consider how the “micro” act of line-editing the sentence signposts more “macro” motivations and associations. In particular, they trace the political and artistic considerations that go into their individual conceptions of authenticity and voice, teasing out the specific questions arising in the context of their own processes which have enabled them to shape the ethics and aesthetics of their novels. This paper aims to contribute to creative writing methodology – a process of thinking, reading, writing, reflecting, and editing – by exposing the relationship in three varied examples between developmental work, intention, point-of-view and voice. Through three case studies that trace works in progress to their final, edited forms, it explores knowledges contained in final fictional works, asking how they are developed through line editing and copyediting and localised in the sentence.