Month: December 2023

Editing Advice from the Orchard – Part 3 – Removing that Fire Blight

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This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. 
John 15:8 NIV

Finally, we come to the last and most difficult things to prune and those are the diseased branches. In apple trees these are branches infected with a bacteria called fire blight, and every old tree has a little. Though there is no known cure, a careful pruning can extend the life of a tree for years. If the sucker growth is the most obnoxious, and the deadwood most obvious, diseased branches as well as diseased writing, is the most obtuse to deal with. You see, sucker growth will never bear fruit and deadwood cannot bear fruit, but blighted limbs may still produce a few withered looking apples. In our writing, disease is not about the double negatives, misspelled words or run on sentences, it has to do with the why’s of our craft and the motives behind our manuscripts.

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If we are just churning out slick stories that appeal to the lowest desires of readers, there may be a bit of fire light creeping in. When we start finger pointing at the faults of others or stirring people to angry debate instead of compassionate service, it is time to ask God to heal our hearts. Eventually a blighted heart will catch up with us, and if left unchecked, will destroy the very purpose for which God called us to write. The secret is that just as trimming in the orchard is done in the Winter, God will choose the Wintertime in our life to root out a diseased direction. And in the editing of our writing, we will work best once the heat of inspiration has worn off and we can come to our pages, with passionless eyes, sharp pencils, and a determination to clear out everything that hampers a great harvest. Then we need to pray that the words we put on the pages of our life as well as our manuscripts will inspire readers to trust in God’s promises, grow in His grace and be filled with the hope that comes only from Him!

Editing Advice from the Orchard – part 2 – Cut Out That Deadwood!

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I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. John 15:1-2 NKJV

Pruning is essential to our writing as well as our lives. Jesus tells us that the master pruner is our Father in Heaven and His pruning as well as our editing is a step-by-step process. In part one we talked about clearing out the sucker growth of overblown verbiage. Today, we come to our next group of compositional ne’er-do-wells called: dead branches. Since pruning in the orchard is done in Winter, first-time trimmers logically ask, “How can you tell which branches are dead, when there aren’t any leaves?” Finding out which are living requires getting close enough to take hold of them. Grabbing on to a live branch you will discover that it is flexible, while dead twigs snap off at the touch of our fingers. In the same way our dead branches in writing as well as our lives, are rigid and dry. When people get close enough to touch them, these dead phrases and dried up ideas make no living connections to our readers. They are like low-calorie deserts, that look scrumptious in the commercials, but artificial sweeteners in snack cakes and as well as sentences leave a bitter aftertaste, and no one will want to go back for a second helping!

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In the orchard, deadwood removal looks brutal when the ground is littered with piles of branches. But cutting those limbs out is vital to the health of the trees. If they remain, they will crowd out the good branches and invite insects and disease to infect the trees. But once they are gone, there will be more space for the healthy branches, and even the tiniest healthy bud has a great advantage over the largest dead limb: it is still alive! Some dead limbs in our lives as well as our manuscripts are so large that a chain saw must be used to cut them out. If the trees in the orchard could talk, I am sure that they would complain loudly while I was removing their sucker growth and deadwood. But in April, the trees that have been pruned will fill with leaves, in May they will be covered with pink blossoms and if you come back in the Fall, you will find them heavy with delicious fruit!

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Editing Advice from the Orchard – Part 1

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Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. James 1:19 ESV

Though there are libraries filled with books, college courses and seminars on how to edit, strangely enough, I learned some of the best pointers on the subject from the apple orchard. After many Winters of frozen fingers and toes, while pruning those trees it felt like I was getting to know some of them on a first name basis! Now, back in those days I wasn’t doing much of the “be quick to hear” stuff, but as I have grown older, I am beginning to remember things spoken to me years ago. These words of wisdom that God was trying to tell me in the orchard, apply as much to life as to writing, So, even if you don’t fancy yourself an author, these just might help you find the path that He has laid out for you as well.

Clear Away those Suckers!

Both editing and pruning begin as process of organizing. When I start to trim an apple tree, I don’t just wade into it with a chain saw, slicing here and hacking away there. No! Instead, a person has to begin by clearing away the sucker growth. For the uninitiated, sucker growth means those long straight stems that shoot up both from the trunk as well as the tops of trees during the Summer. You see that sucker growth looks great, because it is tall and strong, but it will never bear fruit. Instead, just as their name implies, they suck the strength away from the rest of the tree. Sucker growth, in our life and writing is when we are trying too hard and saying too much. In writing, suckers look like crowds of adjectives or unnecessary rabbit trails leading readers down paths of our personal pet peeves. Sometimes suckers come in the form of fifty-dollar words, we toss in, hoping folks will see how brilliant we are. If left unchecked, these guys will grow taller and taller, but they won’t yield a single piece of fruit. What we should be looking for are the branches called fruitwood. Fruitwood looks old and gnarly, but it is filled with healthy buds, that burst into white and pink blossoms in the Springtime. As trimmers, our job is to eliminate anything that steals the air flow and sunshine from the mature fruitwood. Trimming out the clutter in our manuscript or in our daily life, might feel as if we are oversimplifying, but if we want our readers to taste the fruit of the ideas we are trying to communicate, we must not be afraid to ruthlessly cut back everything that draws away attention from the heart of our story and puts the focus on us, instead of on Jesus. So, if you are ready for a new year and a new perspective, then grab those pruning tools, put on your coat and a warm pair of gloves and let’s go out into the orchard and get to work!

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