Rewriting, Revising, & Editing

Mike Cooper - March 1, 2026

To some, these three words mean the same thing, but I like to look at them as different processes. If you look back a couple of months at The Forge blogs, you’ll see in a discussion of workshopping the idea that “Writing is rewriting.” I believe that’s true. I also believe that “Writing is revising” and “Writing is editing.”

To rewrite, put simply, is to write again. We have an idea—usually something fairly vague—like: Why don’t we live forever? or What if someone ate only M&Ms? or What would it be like to live under the sea? and we scribble away for a bit about that. We’ll come up with something, possibly go down some strange rabbit hole, maybe wander completely off topic, and possibly hit a wall. But while we’re doing it, we’re thinking and experimenting and learning and fabricating a world—or the idea of a world—and we’re taking all the things we know, and have ever known and experienced, and creating something new. We push ahead and come to the end and say, “That’s interesting, but it needs something.” And so we write it again. Start over. Maybe we keep some parts and definitely we add some new parts, and we get to the end again. Maybe it’s the same ending with a different middle, or maybe the ending is new. And we go again.

Revision means to “see again,” which comes from the French révision, which means “to see again.” I used to think that seemed pretty simple: “Take another look at it.” But recently someone made me see that differently. We have a “vision” for our work. In our vision, it is finished, significant, and says something important about the human condition, but what if  that vision changes? What if the significance changes? It will. Our visions always change. And what if that new vision holds deeper meaning, deeper truth? And so we revise.

Editing is a back formation of the word “editor” who is the person who creates the “edition” (from the French: édition) which, according to Merriam-Webster, is “the form or version in which a text is published.” To edit is to prepare for publication. To line edit is to go through line by line and make sure every sentence is how we want it to be. To copy edit is to make sure that the spelling, punctuation, and grammar are exactly the way we want them to be. And so we edit and send our work off into the world, pat ourselves on the back, make a sandwich, and put our feet up. Ta-da!

And then we get another idea.

And if you’re looking for ideas, or already have one and are looking for help with your writing (or rewriting—or revising—or editing), get in touch with us at The Forge: theforgewriting@gmail.com. Our next 10-month session starts this September.

THE VOICE in Creative Writing

Image by Hrayr Movsisyan from Pixabay

Irene Cooper | February 1, 2026

What We Talk About When We Talk About Voice

The Voice—the reality competition that brought us Adam Levine, CeeLo Green, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton (with his Big Gulp) in big red swivel chairs— has a straightforward agenda: to choose and coach a talented singer to victory, to be The Voice of that season. But let’s be real, a competition amongst talented people—while entertaining—is a little arbitrary. They’re all good singers. The implication is that one voice in particular stands apart from the rest.

That’s fine, maybe, for a television show (about actual singing), but we’re writers, and while we might not be in direct competition with our peers to out-voice them, we do want our work to be distinctly and recognizably ours. We want to imbue each of our characters with a unique and compelling voice. As writers, we’ve heard the concept of voice bandied about. Sometimes it refers to an author’s voice; other times it relates to the voice of a specific character. So, what are we talking about—as we will this coming class at The Forge—when we talk about voice in creative writing?

Arguably, voice is one of the more elusive and pitchy of literary qualities. You know it when you hear it (or read it). Many readers have a favorite author or two, and that preference may well be due to that author’s particular voice—think Dostoevsky, Octavia Butler, Elmore Leonard, Ottessa Moshfeh, James Baldwin, George Sauders. Arthur Conan Doyle. Larry McMurtry. Terry Pratchett. Sally Rooney. So many fabulous voices, so wide a variety of writing styles and genres.

Character Voice & Narrative Voice

Maybe it’s a character that’s unforgettable; Harper Lee didn’t write a lot of books, but she created and gave voice to Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird. Shakespeare wrote a ton, yet Hamlet is unlike any other of his characters.

I might argue that character voice is built and stands (or sings)—after its ideation, after its moment of writerly invention—on attention to craft: the linguistic, physical, psychological, and social specificities that make this character sound and act the way they do. You are in complete control over how your character presents (even if you’re not entirely sure, at all times, what they’re going to do).

Narrative voice, in its simplest definition, is point of view—first person, second person, third person omniscient, and third person close, to name several of the major players. How close your narrator is to the story affects the narrative voice—first person narration is super close-up, limited to a single (often questionably reliable) perspective. A narrator in third person omniscient can see everything, but from a distance. The former tends to be more intimate (or claustrophobic); the latter can feel cooler in tone. Narrative voice is another decision the writer has the power to make, and with which they can experiment.

Authorial Voice. That’s You.

Authorial voice can be a bit of a mystery. If you write, you’ve got one. It develops with practice. Lots of practice. George Saunders has admitted he spent many years trying to write like famous authors of the twentieth century canon, only to fail miserably. It wasn’t until he was messing around with short fragments that bloomed from his particular fascinations and diction that his personal brand of weird and wonderful was revealed to him. He then built on that revelation to produce a body of work that is singular to him.

As for competition, leave that to the reality shows. My favorite vocal artists range from the dudes who chant Gregorian hymns to Billie Holliday to Antonio Carlos Jobim to

Sinead O’Connor to Erykah Badu and many, many more—no two alike, each one unforgettable. Put in the work. Be unforgettable.

Ready to light a fire under your writing? Get in touch for a chat to see if The Forge is a fit.

Finishing Lines: completing work by the force of your will

by Ellen Santasiero | January 2, 2026

When I arrived at graduate school, the director of my MFA program bid us new students to file into an old-fashion classroom with tiered seating; the seats were the wooden ones with that paddle-shaped desk thing issuing from the right side. Outside the windows, the wind spun snow against a navy sky while our take-no-prisoners director chalked on the blackboard, “Always Be Closing.” The phrase comes from a scene in David Mamet’s film Glengarry Glen Ross, where boss Alec Baldwin verbally abuses his real estate agents for their dismal sales. Our director was trying to scare us straight, especially those of us unable to finish the writing we started.

“Always Be Closing,” commanded blue-eyed Baldwin, and so did our director who had either rued his own unfinished works, or who anticipated how to justify the value of the MFA program before a fusty Board of Directors and whose case would more favorably fly if he showed that his graduates could in fact “close,” i.e. publish. For there can be no publication until a piece is finished, at least to a certain degree.

I, for one, was busted. I had much to learn and improve on, but finishing my pieces probably topped the list.

In a recent Forge class, we discussed “Always Be Closing,” and some strategies that help writers finish. One was to write a “hermit crab” piece in which the writer fits their story, or content, into a pre-existing non-literary form such as a resume, sermon, or recipe. The idea is that the pre-existing form is already finished; you just follow its contours by pouring your content into it. Think ribbons of cold cake batter unfurling into a Bundt pan. Take it out of the oven, and voila! you have a finished piece!

The resulting draft may not be felicitous, it may not be edit-ready, but the exercise gives the writer a feel for an ending, a sense of how a piece might finally turn and lay down to rest.

Other ways to learn how to finish are less prescriptive. My esteemed Forge colleague Irene Cooper asks her students, “When can, or does, process include product?” which is a wonderful head fake. The question assumes that process is the main thing going on at the writer’s desk (which it is) and that product, or publication, might be an afterthought. Ha ha.

I tried a less prescriptive technique recently after I attended a webinar by a local literary luminary (yes, we Forge instructors continue to take classes ourselves) who urged us to “Write With Intention.” This means to choose a home for your writing (a publication you like), write to that place’s specifications, and commit to a deadline for submission.

(Why, you might be thinking, such an emphasis on publication? To that, I say, why not? Many writers want to wield this type of currency in the literary world. Besides, even the rejections—which will come—signals to your writer’s soul that you are serious about this business.)

After listening to the local luminary, I pulled out an essay I’d been picking at for a couple of years, one that I’d actually wanted to appear in an online journal I admired. This journal publishes personal essays that discuss works of art and works of literature in conversation with one other, a subject that has long fascinated me. My essay about a contemporary photograph and an early twentieth century novel, for which I had already inked many, many paragraphs, was about time and rocks and, ultimately, my divorce. After many drafts, I still could not figure out how to end the piece.

Newly energized, I checked the journal’s web site: the next deadline was in four months. Over the ensuing weeks, I settled on the one thing I wanted to say in the piece, made some more revisions, and wrote a good-enough conclusion. It was mid-November, the sky a dark berry, and the stars were just coming out when I hit send. One month and two days later, I received an email acceptance.

This story has everything to do with figuring out what I really wanted to say, revision, persistence, and letting go. But today, it’s also about committing to “Writing With Intention,” which included a deadline. I simply promised myself that I would submit it on that date, and that meant, to the best of my ability, I would make the piece turn and lay it down to rest.