EDITING THE NOVEL

Cutting and Pasting

Wharton’s writing process often started with notes on characters and major plot developments. With a clear sense of the chronology of events and the personalities she would describe, Wharton then handwrote her novels on numbered pages. When editing her manuscript, she cut acceptable sections of writing from pages containing discarded lines, and pasted the strip onto another sheet of paper. She continued this process as many times as necessary. On the manuscript page featured here, Wharton glued seven strips together to create one especially long sheet. As shown by the reverse side of the same page, Wharton also reused pieces of paper that featured rejected lines of text. The reverse side of one manuscript page even contains a quick math problem.

Page 324

Reverse side of page 324