A couple weeks ago, I completed my Fiction Writing degree with Columbia College Chicago. When I started in Fiction Writing, I had no real rewriting “process” to speak of. I did a lot of rewriting as I was writing, which meant it took me approximately eight thousand years to finish a piece. It also gave me a false sense of quality once I considered my piece finished. Since I had been rewriting as I went, clearly the minute I typed “the end” my piece was publishable, right?
My first fiction classes showed me how much more work needed to be done. I had author Stephanie Kuehnert for Young Adult Fiction. Stephanie taught me a method I still use on short stories and individual chapters to look for balance. I assign a different highlighter color to different aspects of a story to check the pulse of the pacing. Blue for dialogue, yellow for exposition/model telling, green for actions and pink for thoughts/internal dialogue. Then I place the pages on the floor in sequence and just look at the balance of color. Does the exposition go on too long? Did the character have no thought or reaction to the action that just happened? It’s just a nice visual rewriting activity.
All the subsequent classes I’ve taken since have made me better at revising. I really love the bracketing activity, where you bracket everything in a piece that seems essential. It’s amazing how something that simple can reveal the heart of what you are trying to say in any piece. I still tend to rewrite as I write, which is fine as long as I remember that it isn’t the be all, end all of my revising process. What has really became clear to me after going to school for fiction is that to be good at writing you have to be good at rewriting. No one, no matter what they (or legends) say, spews gold on the first try every time. You try out all the methods you’ve learned and, at first, your techniques are pretty evident.
I don’t mean to make it sound negative because it isn’t; it’s just similar to when a baby first learns to walk. Their steps are obvious, exaggerated, and you can’t help but watch each awkward leg as it moves. Eventually, the baby masters the method of walking and you become more concerned with where they are going rather than how they are getting there. This is what I will need to do when I revise. Revisions will focus on smoothing the steps and focusing the reader on where the story is going instead of how it’s getting there.
I’m very happy about the place I’m in when it comes to both writing and rewriting. I feel prepared to take my fiction degree into the writing world and work on creating publishable quality stories.
