To understand novel revision, there are three basic concepts you must grasp.
First, is the idea that when you finish a novel, there are now two novels. There’s the one on paper and the one in your head–and they are not the same. One of the major tasks of revising your novel is to make sure everything in your head is on the paper. How many times do readers say to you things like this: I don’t understand. I can’t visualize how that happened. I am confused.
And you are totally surprised, because of course, it’s right there in the story. No. You didn’t put it on the page.
Second, you are also trying to match up your story to your concept of an ideal story. An ideal story–according to you–might be one with lots of action, stirring emotions and a great love story that resolves at the end. Or it might be one of slowly peeling back the layers of action to reveal a character. Whatever your ideal story is–you didn’t hit it on the first draft and the second draft is your chance to try it again.
Third, and related to the first two, the function of a revision is different from the first draft. In the first draft, you are figuring out what story you want to tell. In the second and subsequent drafts, you are figuring out what is the most dramatic way to tell that story. What can you change, how can you structure it differently, so that your reader stays engaged the whole way through?
Revision is the only way to achieve a publishable novel and it’s not scary. It’s just a different phase of writing the story from the first draft–making sure what’s in your head is on the page, and one of matching up a story to an ideal story, and one of considering your reader and making sure you keep that reader the whole way through.
The Great Wall was built one stone at a time; you climb it one step at a time; your story is written one word at at time. Slow and steady can create magnificence. (I am in the orange & white hat.)
I am stumped, not blocked. I know that something in my current writing project needs to change, I’m just not sure how to best accomplish it. It’s partly a matter of organization–this is a nonfiction project–making sure that everything is included, ideas flow logically. But as is so often, it’s not straightforward. I could go in a couple different directions.
I’m at the point where I probably need to commit to one structure, write a draft and get feedback. Sigh. The writing process needs that feedback loop. I will need to know how clear my ideas are and if someone can use this to accomplish something: will the information be helpful in this format?
As I write this draft then, I will keep my audience firmly in mind. Sometimes, I just write for the story or the ideas and don’t worry about the audience. But this draft is different. After a couple drafts, I know the material, so this draft is about communicating with clarity. Fiction gets to that point, too, when you know the story and the next draft is about clarity so the reader experiences the emotions of the story.
The first draft is almost always about finding the story or the idea. After that, the purposes of a draft of fiction is to find the most dramatic way to tell that story so it will impact readers emotionally. For nonfiction, the purpose of subsequent drafts is to find clarity and, if it’s creative nonfiction, to find that reader experience, too.
That’s where I am today–where are you in your writing process today?
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Commitment v. Revision
Your total commitment to the current draft of your novel is in direct conflict with the need to maintain an attitude of revision
Teaching Freshmen to Have an Attitude of Revision
When I taught Freshman Composition at a local college, I started on the first day by pairing students up with a partner and asking them to tell a story, a personal narrative. The story had to be something in which they were actively doing something, and it took place over only a 30-minute time period. And, since it was college, I forbade several topics: no boyfriend/girlfriend stories; no stories of senior trips where you attended the “Party of the Century”; and no car wrecks. I gave them one-and-a-half minutes each to tell their story.
Easy. They loved getting to chat with a fellow classmate, especially since as freshmen on the campus they still felt like strangers. They expected me to then ask them to write their story.
But even before a word is committed to the page, I wanted my students to consider revision. I asked them to tell the story again, a different way. Start at a different place, end at a different place, start at a different time, include details you forgot the first time, omit details that didn’t really matter, slow down and really remember what you did step-by-step, etc. This time, each story had to fill two minutes.
Were the stories better? Yes.
At the risk of my students thinking I was totally crazy, they had to tell their own story a third time, expanding even more to fill a full three minutes.
Then, they got to write their own story. Even at the early stage of prewriting – rehearsing a story orally to write later – writers need to remember that nothing is set in stone yet. Everything is open for change, until you are much farther along in the writing process.
A Novelist’s Attitude of Revision
Crude StoryCrafting. The first draft of a story is you mostly decide/find out one thing: what is the story I want to tell? Later drafts may or may not refine the story, but they will certainly address this concern: what is the best way to tell this story? For me, even as I write a draft, I’m always asking if this is the best way, the most dramatic way, the most emotionally involving way to tell my story. I realize that first drafts help me nail down characters, plots, settings and more. The next drafts may need drastic changes to some element here or there, but I hope the overall story shape emerges in the first draft.
Logical, Logistical Details. Second drafts need to fill in holes in the story. The narrative and emotional arcs need to build, events need to challenge the main character, characters need to reveal their inner lives. But you can’t leave major logical problems: readers must never be given any reason to doubt your storytelling. Logistically, you must make sure the transitions are appropriate and move the story smoothly from one scene to the next.
Focus on Storytelling Skills. For the later drafts, the storytelling skills come to the forefront, as you polish the language, pacing, and voice. This is one of the most fun stages of drafts, because I love to play with the language, trying out different words, different combinations of sounds, varying sentence length. It’s here that I like to challenge myself to use a really long sentence, maybe 200 words. And to use sentence fragments correctly and effectively. Fun!
A Novelist’s Passionate Commitment to the Current Draft
Commit to the Current Draft. So, while I write that first draft, I’m aware of what’s coming. But I also have to make an emotional commitment to this draft. Otherwise, my characters aren’t convincing, I won’t take the time to fully explore a setting because, “It might get cut in the next draft.” If I make the mistake of thinking this is a Kleenex Draft, then I’ll have to do many more drafts later.
Give. In her book, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard has said, “Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.”
Commit to the draft you are currently writing, but realize that this draft is the beginning of an exciting process. It should actually give you some relief: you don’t have to be perfect on this first draft. Just passionate.
Post from: Revision Notes
Revise Your Novel!
Copyright 2009. Darcy Pattison. All Rights Reserved.
Related posts:
- When to Ask for a Critique
- Starting a Novel
- Don’t Avoid the Emotion
