Writing is one of those arts that we take for granted. We write emails, cards, grocery lists and text messages. Some of us write lengthier pieces in diaries and journals, or we may engage in forums online. We leave comments on blogs, reviews on shopping sites and long, rambling Facebook posts. Most of this type of writing doesn’t require much revision, (although much of it should!) It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that writing isn’t a craft but a basic life skill like driving a car or folding laundry, that the more you do it the easier it becomes. But this is a fallacy. Writing gets harder the better you become. The desire to communicate more effectively and recognizing the power of words only raises the standard again and again.
One of the major pitfalls for new writers is this belief that great writing should happen in the first draft. It’s true that sometimes a great sentence or two can appear in a first draft and maybe a full paragraph lands on the page without much revising but for the most part it is a laborious process of cut, crop, clean, followed by review, rethink, rewrite. This can take many, many rounds of before the final product is effective. Revision is the only way to really improve your writing.
So what is involved in revisions? How does one revise?
Let’s assume for a moment that you have a complete rough draft and you are ready to begin revising. Here is my method gleaned from lots of other writers’ wisdom and my own hard earned experience. It begins with questions.
1. What is this (story, essay, poem, chapter etc.) about?
Answer this question with a single statement. Here is a list of examples:
- My (story, essay, poem, chapter etc.) is about. . .
- Recovering from my father’s death
- Leaving home for the first time
- One woman’s quest to find her power
- A man’s journey in the wilderness to recover his identity
And so forth. One sentence that summarizes what the piece is about. This is harder to do than it first appears. Give it try. If you don’t have your own writing to examine take a look at someone else’s work. Take a chapter from the book you are currently reading and answer the same question. What is this chapter about? Answer with one statement.
2. When and how is this illustrated?
How will the reader know for certain that this is what your story is about? What is the scene, the moment that is most clearly showing the reader what the story or chapter is about? Again, write this answer in one statement.
Here are some examples from the above list:
- The day I decide to name my firstborn son after my own father and beginning to heal the rift between us.
- The moment of hanging a calendar on the wall of my new apartment and realizing my life is my own.
- The woman’s decision to sue her boss for sexual harassment and finding her power in the act of choosing and not in the outcome.
- When this man falls from a outcropping and breaks his leg and is able to reconnect to his needs and sensitivity he had as a young boy.
The next step is creating a punch list. A punch list lays the order of the story through scenes and narration. The first example about the father’s death, might look something like this:
Opening Scene: Standing at my father’s grave, heavily pregnant. Life and death in the same space.
Flashback Scene: Discovery of my unexpected pregnancy and feelings of regret.
Narration: My difficult relationship with my father and feeling unwanted by him. Connecting the unexpected pregnancy to feeling unwanted myself.
Scene: Birth and delivery and feeling inadequate to care for my son
Narration: Struggling to accept this new change in my life. Feeling like it is a prison. Fear of other’s judgment. Not wanting to name him.
Scene: Son crying one night and finding myself desperate to reach his crib. Realizing how much I love him and want him.
Scene: Naming my son after my father, while also naming my pain in that relationship.
Closing Narration: The power of naming things to change things.
Many times after creating the punch list I have to go back and change what the story is about and how it is illustrated. Each step of the process creates more clarity for the revision. When I am satisfied I go back to my rough draft.
Does the chapter/story match the punch list? Does the reader know by the end what the story is about? Have I properly built up the climatic scene where it is illustrated?
I rearrange paragraphs, sentences and words. I keep rearranging it until it works. Sometimes I change the punch list to match what I have on the page and sometimes it is the reverse. Either way the punch list gives me a quick reference for how the narrative arc flows from point to point. Once all the pieces are in place and I am communicating clearly, I am ready for the next step. Shaping. But I will save that for next month’s newsletter.
It’s important to be patient with yourself during this process of early revisions. It will take many tries and many fails to get it right but in the end it’s worth the effort.
