The Backroads of Revision - Part IV
Posted by Andie Ryan Blog at 3/6/2010 4:15 PM 
Categories: Writing Workshops, Revision Backroads
Tags: Lillian Hellman draft The Children's Hour emotive truth writing editor revision Philip Roth writing workshop Dashiell Hammett Faulkner
Categories: Writing Workshops, Revision Backroads
Tags: Lillian Hellman draft The Children's Hour emotive truth writing editor revision Philip Roth writing workshop Dashiell Hammett Faulkner
I am always baffled when I hear someone tell me that they don't want pre-publication feedback on their writing because they don't want anyone telling them what to do.
"He [the writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice." (William Faulkner, in a speech accepting the Nobel Prize, Dec. 10, 1950)
What's the fear?
"[A] life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your way."--Philip Roth, The Counterlife (1987)
SHAKEDOWN was originally a short story. When I look back through the initial workshop comments from 2002 and 2003, I see the following:
That's lost, right?
Three and four years later, I was still learning from those workshop comments. But in that time, I had started to practice in earnest. I wouldn't have started to practice -- not nearly as soon, anyway -- if I hadn't been forced to look at the story's flaws through the eyes of an objective group of readers who were good enough to be honest with me. My strongest recommendation is that you seek out the same.
"But I know what they're going to say," you may think. This is getting closer to what the fear of criticism really is: that someone will either articulate an idea that you had begun to form and, in your view, "steal" it away, or come up with an idea that you hadn't thought of that actually improves the story. This makes the story not your own, doesn't it, and will cause major resistance. It's at this most critical time that you need to keep an open mind. Remember, it's a single brushstroke on which you elaborate.
You don't know ahead of time what the readers of your drafts will say, not most of the time. By all means give yourself a reasonable amount of time to think the story through, to work out where you want it to lead. Then fire it into the trenches, because your critiquers will also tell you what does work about the story, and that's equally valuable.
It's an odd thing, revision. As long as potential changes or choices are only in your head, you're not as compelled to deal with them because you're the only one who sees them. When you hear them from someone else, or see red marks that aren't your own on the page, it spurs you on. It validates some of what you already suspect, and forces you to take the next step. That's a good and positive thing. It gets your story closer to completion. It frees you from the vacuum.
Keeping it all to yourself is unfortunate, because a lot of good writing goes unnoticed that way. A lot of talent goes undeveloped, and a lot of wonderful stories die on the vine.
Don't let yours be one of them.
Quotes from THE INTERNATIONAL THESAURUS OF QUOTATIONS (compiled by Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall De Bruhl)
"He [the writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice." (William Faulkner, in a speech accepting the Nobel Prize, Dec. 10, 1950)
What's the fear?
- They're going to make my story into something it's not. Where a story goes, and what happens in it, is the writer's decision. Workshops and editors compel you to look at your story in a different way, to think of your characters in different environments, in different action. This is healthy. It makes you sure of where you're going, and it makes your story stronger. What you've done with your first draft is get their interest -- now you need to give them more. Remember, a critical comment is a brushstroke on a canvas. You supply the contrast, the conflict, the emotion. The brushstroke may form the basis for something, or you may paint over it. How -- or even if -- you execute your response is up to you. Always will be.
- I'm not listening to anyone whose writing is inferior to mine. Writing and editing are different skills. This is why we have editors. Even the writers in workshops who were just beginning, or who had a lot to learn about craft, could still tell me if a scene moved them, or if they connected to a character. This is what you're after. It's important feedback. Writers who finish a first draft sometimes put a metaphoric lock on it, thinking it will keep the story safe, intact. But your most valuable critics will try to pick that lock open, to break it. When they succeed, if you pay attention, the next lock on your next draft will be stronger.
- If I write just to please other people, I'm just pandering. I write for myself. This is perfectly fine and okay if you don't care about being read. But if you care about being read, about having your story mean something to someone else, you'll keep the reader in mind. You're out of business if you don't.
When you doubt what's on your own pages, I think it means that what's on the page is not the full truth -- and you know it. When workshop comments make you doubt yourself and your story, push through those doubts. It's the revision equivalent of getting back on the bike, and it will steel you against professional rejection later on when the reasons might be a complete mystery and not worth any lengthy contemplation.You can't write in a vacuum. When you consider the reader, you get to the truth of your story, the emotive truth, giving something through your stories that others can recognize in their own lives, an experience that lives beyond the page. Truth is elusive, and lies beneath heavy layers of language and structure and dialogue and action. Truth requires work.
"[A] life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your way."--Philip Roth, The Counterlife (1987)
SHAKEDOWN was originally a short story. When I look back through the initial workshop comments from 2002 and 2003, I see the following:
- "A suggestion from an old writing class: show don't tell."
- "What happened at the end?"
- "Get closer to the bone here. More emotion. Too detached."
- "[protagonist] is not really conflicted...need to feel some degree of empathy for him and right now I don't."
- "...their lives were totally untouched by the betrayal...that doesn't feel real as a reader."
- "What do [the] characters look like?"
- "The characters are so passive...[they are] dominoes that fall when they're pushed."
- "...Business tends to put people to sleep."
That's lost, right?
Three and four years later, I was still learning from those workshop comments. But in that time, I had started to practice in earnest. I wouldn't have started to practice -- not nearly as soon, anyway -- if I hadn't been forced to look at the story's flaws through the eyes of an objective group of readers who were good enough to be honest with me. My strongest recommendation is that you seek out the same.
"But I know what they're going to say," you may think. This is getting closer to what the fear of criticism really is: that someone will either articulate an idea that you had begun to form and, in your view, "steal" it away, or come up with an idea that you hadn't thought of that actually improves the story. This makes the story not your own, doesn't it, and will cause major resistance. It's at this most critical time that you need to keep an open mind. Remember, it's a single brushstroke on which you elaborate.
You don't know ahead of time what the readers of your drafts will say, not most of the time. By all means give yourself a reasonable amount of time to think the story through, to work out where you want it to lead. Then fire it into the trenches, because your critiquers will also tell you what does work about the story, and that's equally valuable.
It's an odd thing, revision. As long as potential changes or choices are only in your head, you're not as compelled to deal with them because you're the only one who sees them. When you hear them from someone else, or see red marks that aren't your own on the page, it spurs you on. It validates some of what you already suspect, and forces you to take the next step. That's a good and positive thing. It gets your story closer to completion. It frees you from the vacuum.
Keeping it all to yourself is unfortunate, because a lot of good writing goes unnoticed that way. A lot of talent goes undeveloped, and a lot of wonderful stories die on the vine.
Don't let yours be one of them.
Quotes from THE INTERNATIONAL THESAURUS OF QUOTATIONS (compiled by Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall De Bruhl)
I don't know who Andie Ryan is, but he sounds like a wise and experienced writer/teacher. Probably the trait that prevents most (younger) writers from learning from their mistakes is ego, particularly the defensive variety.
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