October 26th, 2011 / 9:56 am
Craft Notes

39

Interviewer: How much rewriting do you do?

Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times before I was satisfied.

 

Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?

Hemingway: Getting the words right.

(Ernest Hemingway, “The Art of Fiction,” The Paris Review Interview, 1956)

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One Comment

  1. deadgod

      tie your mother down tie your mother down lock your daddy out of doors I don’t need him nosing around