Words of Wisdom on Revision, from Kent Brown at Highlights Foundation

The following came from Kent Brown at Highlights Foundation, with a tag at the end inviting folks to share.  I especially like Raymond Chandler's comment!:

"Revision is where the real story lives." 

Editorial consultant Eileen Robinson provided us with this thought. We wondered how many people in the children's book business feel the same way about revision. We found thousands of quotes from authors and editors alike, who, like Eileen, know that "revision is where the real story lives." 

"I'm a rewriter. That's the part I like best . . . once I have a pile of paper to work with, it's like having the pieces of a puzzle. I just have to put the pieces together to make a picture." —Judy Blume 

"If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.' Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!" —Naomi Shihab Nye 

"Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain." —Elie Wiesel 

"Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon."—Raymond Chandler  

"Get your first draft done any way you can. Then the real work starts: revision." —Harold Underdown 

Breaking Up the Logjam of Mid-story Writer's Block

In the old days, breaking up a logjam was incredibly tricky and dangerous. Loggers carefully removed one or more “key logs” (a little like reverse jenga, I guess) and if it was a really bad jam, they had to use dynamite. These days, they use a machine to haul out big chunks until the logs start moving.

I've been working on revisions for my YA novel, THE SPARROW'S SECRET HEART. It was my first novel, and it's been through more rewrites than I can count, including a complete point of view shift from third person to first person, but I keep coming back to it because I still love the protagonist and he just won't let me give up on him.

Recently I hit a logjam. I'm trying to rewrite a pivotal scene that introduces an important character, the protagonist's Aunt Megan, a complete stranger to him until this moment. My critique group demanded a better description of Aunt Megan and her house, as well as a restructuring of the scene to raise the tension and conflict. I kept coming at the scene and stalling. Over and over and over. Finally, I realized I really didn't know enough about this aunt of his. So I sat down and started working on the backstory.

Now, I'd worked out a backstory for Aunt Megan before, but it really was surface stuff, more about plot logistics as they affected my protagonist than about Aunt Megan herself. I realized I didn't even have a clue how to get inside her head yet. So I started with the timeline, her age when certain key events took place. I pieced together the ways those events affected her and her life. Then I wrote my problem scene in first person from Aunt Megan's point of view. Mind you, I have no plans to rewrite the novel in her point of view. This was an exercise to help me find my way into the scene.

I wish I could say the words flew from my finger tips, but they didn't. With each key log I thought I'd removed, new ones took its place, new questions about who Aunt Megan was. I wrote scenes that had nothing to do with my protagonist. I followed lines of thought well beyond the necessary conclusion. I got out my sketchpad and drew a complete floor plan of her house. It was a little terrifying to make such a commitment to the interior world of a character who isn't my protagonist. Why was I spending all this time on stuff that wouldn't even make it into my final draft?

But it was worth it. Bit by bit, the logs began to break free. Aunt Megan came into focus. Critical motives and subtexts revealed themselves. It's taken me a good week or so, and a lot of words that won't end up in the novel itself, but the logs are floating downriver again.

Mine was definitely a case of removing key logs one at a time, gradual and painstaking. But I've also had those dynamite situations - just sit down and power through it with some insane, off-the-wall notion. I've even used the chunks at a time method - cut this chunk, move this chunk, and soon it makes sense again.

When you've faced writer's block, how did you break up your logjam? Chunk-chomping machine? Key logs? Or dynamite?

Overworking the Clay

On my latest project, I found myself worrying away at the same spot over and over, bringing the same chapters to my critique group, rewritten, revised, renewed and tweaked, week after week. Every week I'd say to myself, "That's good enough for this draft. Now it's time to move forward." My group would echo the sentiment, reminding me not to "overwork the clay." But every week, when I sat down to write, I found myself rereading and rewriting that same section. My logic brain told me I was caught in a quagmire and rereading those same sections was a trap, but some other slippery spirit in me kept insisting on going back.

I didn't really have this problem on the first two novels. Here I am on my third, thinking "I should be getting better at this. In fact, I should know better." I began to think the genre was what made the difference. The first two novels were realistic fiction. This one is magical realism, and the rules and process feel completely different, more metaphorical, less linear. I've written a full draft and about two-thirds of it is useless. I've written multiple synopses that seem to make perfect sense only to have the story hijack me into some other direction. Every rewrite seems to change the metaphorical elements or the psychological landscape just enough that I have to go back and alter imagery, scenes, characters. And each tiny change in choice or motivation has a potentially seismic impact on the physical landscape, the symbolic magical objects and the otherworldly characters.

Okay. Let's say this genre demands a spiraling approach to drafts and revision. Even so, at some point you overdo it. At some point you have to let go and move on or you risk "overworking the clay" - leaving your characters and story limp, exhausted and nearly lifeless from obsessive attention to one section. How much is too much? What signals tell you to move on? What if you go too far - can your story be rescued?

I am reminded of watching my third graders attempt watercolor painting using non-watercolor paper. They just don't understand the idea of exhausting or overworking the paper. I'll watch as they paint and paint and paint the same spot until the paper is coming up in little nubbins or falling apart in their hands or they've worn a hole right through their favorite section of the picture. Then they come to me in despair believing it's ruined. I tell them to let the paper rest and dry and then we will try to repair it by transferring what's usable onto a new, fresh, stronger piece of paper. Perhaps I need to heed my own advice.

Of course the best way to prevent the ruined watercolor situation is to use the right kind of paper to begin with. Proper watercolor paper can handle the kind of stress placed on it by diligent and overly enthusiastic third graders, or by techniques like watercolor wash that involve tons of moisture. It's strong, thick, heavy and durable.

So what's the metaphorical equivalent of "the right kind of paper" for a novel? Setting? Point of view? Pre-drafting strategies? Plot outline? General structure? It has to do with the foundation you lay before the intricate, in-depth work of drafting and revision begins.

What do you do to lay a good foundation before you dive into the serious drafting process?

Fearless Revision

"What if I rewrite the whole thing in first person?"
"What if I cut this chapter entirely?"
"What if death is the narrator?"
"What if there are 4 different narrators?"
"What if I write it as a blog?"
"What if she turns into a hippo instead of a moose?"

There was a time when I revised like an ancient, nearsighted clockmaker, turning over every word and phrase, tinkering with the minutest mechanism, making miserly revisions as if each change cost me and each letter was crafted from grains of diamond dust. I love treating words with so much affection and care, but I'm thankful that I have finally developed the courage to make more fearless revisions, skydiving, bungee-jumping revisions, the kind of revisions that change the entire landscape of a manuscript.

My whole critique group seems to have entered this phase of development together, which makes it ten times more exhilarating. When one of us announces, "I think I'm going to cut that whole section and move the important parts here instead," we cheer, we exult. It feels like we've all gone cliff-diving together.

Perhaps the support and safety of this long-term critique group has given me the foundation of confidence to take those plot-shattering leaps. Or maybe this liberation comes with writing novel-length pieces. Perhaps it's a function of exposing myself, over a period of time, to multiple critiques. Or maybe being in the habit of writing has made the words less scarce and therefore less precious, the process less like mining gold and more like cultivating a garden.

What is the most fearless, radical change you've ever made in a piece of your own writing? How did it affect the story?

If you've found yourself saying, "What if I ....?" or "I wonder what would happen if ...." then I challenge you to grab the hands of some fellow writers and take that vigorous plunge! What have you got to lose?