The Unhewn Stone: On the Peril of Polishing Your Prose
Every writing workshop, every style guide, every piece of well-intentioned advice from a seasoned editor will tell you the same thing: the real work begins in revision. The mantra is to ‘kill your darlings,’ to sand every rough edge to a high-gloss sheen, to polish the prose until it reflects a perfect, unblemished image of your intent. We are taught to worship at the altar of the final draft, a pristine monument to considered thought. But I want to posit a heretical idea. What if, in our quest for flawless execution, we are systematically sanding away the very thing that makes writing breathe? What if the unhewn stone is more compelling than the polished gem?
This isn’t an argument for sloppiness. It is, however, a plea for the retention of a certain energy—the raw, initial spark that ignited the piece in the first place. Often, that spark lives in the slightly awkward turn of phrase, the unconventional metaphor that doesn’t quite land perfectly, the sentence that carries a little too much weight for its structure. In our zeal to correct these ‘flaws,’ we replace them with something safe, something universally acceptable, and in doing so, we bleach the color from our own voice. The writing becomes correct, but it also becomes anonymous.
Think of the writers whose voices are instantly recognizable. They often possess a certain rhythmic strangeness, a willingness to let a sentence stand that a copyeditor might flag as ‘unwieldy.’ This isn’t a lack of skill; it’s a masterful deployment of it. They understand that a voice isn’t built from perfectly arranged bricks but from the unique mortar holding them together—the idiosyncrasies, the slight imperfections in the handiwork that prove a human was here.
The danger of over-polishing is that it creates a frictionless reading experience. Everything flows so smoothly that the reader’s mind glides right over it, leaving no trace. A rough edge, a slightly challenging construction, forces a moment of engagement. It makes the reader pause, re-read, and actively participate in the construction of meaning. That moment of friction is where a thought can lodge itself, where a connection is truly forged. It is the difference between a perfectly smooth, machine-made table and one hand-planed by a carpenter—you can feel the history and the effort in the latter. You want to run your hand over it.
I am not suggesting you abandon editing. Instead, I propose a more nuanced approach. Edit for clarity, for rhythm, for coherence. But during your revisions, be on the lookout for those moments of unexpected life. When you find a sentence that feels alive but ‘imperfect,’ pause. Ask yourself if ‘fixing’ it will truly make it better, or if it will simply make it more like everything else. Sometimes, the bravest edit is the one you don’t make. Sometimes, the true craft lies in knowing what to leave untouched, preserving the unhewn stone at the heart of your work.
Notes & further reading
A few pages I came back to while writing this: