“I am the kind of writer who rewrites and rewrites.”

— Kenzaburō Ōe

Paris Review interview (2007)
Context: I am the kind of writer who rewrites and rewrites. I am very eager to correct everything. If you look at one of my manuscripts, you can see I make many changes. So one of my main literary methods is “repetition with difference.” I begin a new work by first attempting a new approach toward a work that I’ve already written — I try to fight the same opponent one more time. Then I take the resulting draft and continue to elaborate upon it, and as I do so the traces of the old work disappear. I consider my literary work to be a totality of differences within repetition.
I used to say that this elaboration was the most important thing for a novelist to learn.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am the kind of writer who rewrites and rewrites." by Kenzaburō Ōe?

Kenzaburō Ōe 43

Japanese author 1935

Related quotes

“The only kind of writing is rewriting.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast

“I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.”

James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author

“Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“There are too many "creative writing" courses and seminars, in which young wirters are constantly being taught to rewrite the previous generation. They should be experimenting on their own. Every writer faces different problems which he must solve for himself.”

John Dos Passos (1896–1970) novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, painter

"Conversation with Dos Passos," New Leader, Feb 23 1959

“Mostly, you write a script and someone’s gonna rewrite you. They get hundreds of— not hundred but they get ten writers to write something. If you have a big budget, you can go and get a lot of people to write on script…. I just actually heard that somebody said, 'Well, your screenplay got bought and now someone like Carrie Fisher will come in and rewrite you.' And I feel terrible, you know, because that’s not what I mean to do. My idea was never to raid something and trash it, you know. ‘Cause that – that’s more work for me!”

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) American actress, screenwriter and novelist

From the filmmaking documentary Dreams on Spec

“…Sometimes I’ll do these things for a couple of days then suddenly one day the poem comes out, just like that, in a couple of minutes. I might rewrite it later, a kind of fine tuning, or sometimes I’ll tell the audience it’s a new poem and just perform it to see if it works.”

Benjamin Zephaniah (1958) English poet and author

On his writing process in “Interview with Benjamin Zephaniah” https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/advice/37/a-writers-toolkit/interviews-with-authors/interview-with-benjamin-zephaniah in Writers & Artists

“I have gone to the set and you’re kind of around in this—it’s kind of combat writing when you do rewriting and stuff, and I feel like it’s a kind of ambulance chasing. Recently, I did this kind of a (laughing) where you go, “Oh, my God, it’s bleeding from the second act. Quick! Quick! Give me a suture! No, give me the paddles! This is the third act that’s having a heart attack!! The star is coming! The star is coming!"”

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) American actress, screenwriter and novelist

And it's this incredibly intense process!
From the filmmaking documentary Dreams on Spec

“I always like to maintain that I am a writer first and then a director. But unfortunately, I am not known as much as a writer. I am a first-class writer and a second-class director.”

Sai Paranjpye (1938) Indian film director

The Hindu article by Arti Das - I am a first-class writer and a second-class director: Sai Paranjpye https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/i-am-a-first-class-writer-and-a-second-class-director-sai-paranjpye/article26606850.ece - 23 March 2019 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210901092539/https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/i-am-a-first-class-writer-and-a-second-class-director-sai-paranjpye/article26606850.ece
Quotes from Sai Paranjpye

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist… I am a person who does those things.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

“I am not a science fiction writer. I am a fantasy writer. But the label got put on me and stuck.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Ray Bradbury interview http://lists.topica.com/lists/gsn-newsday-list/read/message.html?sort=t&mid=911788456 March 23, 2005

“I am the kind of writer who rewrites and rewrites.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Kenzaburō Ōe 43

Related quotes

Related topics