Revised revision plan

I did not get to revise anything this weekend, as I had planned. I did finish laying out the alumni newsletter I'm working on for my grad assistantship, and that took all my work time/energy. So... now I need to spend this week revising stuff to submit for my MFA residency. This is how I plan to proceed:

Tonight: Make notes on the main characters of the tougher of the two stories I plan to revise. Identify scenes that need to be added/deleted. Use a chapter of Prep (a book I'm currently reading and loving) as a model for how much showing and telling to do.

Tomorrow: Begin rewriting

Wednesday: Continue rewriting

Thursday: See Steven Cramer read (see previous post for more info)

Saturday: Revise 2nd story (which needs less work, in my opinion)

Sunday: Finish up whatever I haven't gotten to in both stories.

Lesson #3: How to revise

As you may remember, I started out the month posting some lessons I
learned from my MFA residency. I stopped at #2 not because I only
learned two things, but because I forgot to blog about the rest. Here
we go again...

Revision
A.J.Verdelle led a two-session seminar on revision. The most useful thing I got out of the seminar was that revision should be methodical. It's funny because I am methodical when revising my writing for my day job, but not when revising my fiction. By methodical I mean that you should pick 15 or so areas that you want to work on in revision, and go through your manuscript 15 times, working on one area at a time. What should you focus on? Here are some suggestions:
1. Verbs. A.J. said that everyone should chose this as one of their 15 areas for every story. She suggested reading through your story, circling your verbs as you go. Then go back and look at just the verbs: you should be able to tell what's going on just by reading them. Edit out any "to be" verbs, "ing" verbs, and verbs in the distant past (ie "She was dancing", "she had been dancing." Change those to "she danced" for more immediacy.)
2. Redundancy: Look for places where you tell the reader or imply to the reader something he/she already knows. Cut those out.
3. Ask yourself: Does enough happen?
4. Ask yourself: Are the actions of the story clear enough? Are the places, people, things clear enough?
5. Watch for vague words such as it, one, someday, anyplace, something. Replace them with specifics.
6. Read your story aloud and edit for flow. (I would argue that everyone should do this for every story)

What are others that should be added to this list?

Another tip I found helpful was, before you revise ask yourself these three questions and answer them specifically. Then revise with the answers in mind:

1. Why did I write this story?
2. What story did I write?
3. Do I want to go with the story I wrote, or the story I had planned to
write? (As we all know, those are often very different things!)

Reality vs. residency

I'm taking a break from my "lessons" series to wonder aloud (or in type, I guess) whether I'm the only one who feels slightly paralyzed after residency. I learn so much each time I go, and I'm so excited to get to my work, but then reality sets in. First drafts are hard! And messy! I think during my week o' learning, I expect some lesson to come and cure the first draft craziness. It also is frustrating to know that you know more than you're able to get down on the page during a first draft that has to go to your mentor (especially when you are slightly enamored with your new mentor and you don't want to make an ass out of yourself in front of him). I guess the moral of this post is that no matter how many epiphanies I have, the process doesn't get easier. Sigh....

Lesson 1: First person narration

This is the first of a series of posts on what I learned in my MFA week at Lesley. These posts are mostly to help me synthesize what I learned, but I hope they prove helpful to other writers out there, too!

A new faculty member, Marcie Hershman, taught a great seminar on first-person narration. The main things I learned are:

* With first person-stories, there are two stories going on: there's the story of the person telling the story (Why is he/she choosing to tell this story? Why is it meaningful to him/her?) and the story of the people/events being described. The story of the narrator must be underneath the plot story. Otherwise, the story should be told in third person.

* In that way, there should be many layers to a first-person story

* The writer should remember that the "I" narrator is selective over what information he/she gives the reader, and he/she has control over that information.

*The "I" narrator immediately conjures a personality and character.

I'm back!

This third MFA residency was the best yet. I learned more than I thought possible in a week's time, reconnected with my buddies, and got reinvigorated about writing. The moral? A whole lotta good can come from one little week when it's jam packed with writing, reading, and friends talking about writing and reading.

I'll soon post some of the lessons I learned, including some thoughts on revision, different ways to make writing "astonishing," and how to end a short story. Stay tuned!

Come one, come all!

Each night of Lesley's MFA residency, the teachers give readings, which are free and open to the public. Here's the lineup for this year:

Friday, June 22 | 7:30 pm
Leah Hager Cohen, fiction
Don Share, poetry

Saturday, June 23 | 7:00 pm
David Elliott, writing for young people
Marcie Hershman, fiction

Sunday, June 24 | 7:00 pm
Kyoko Mori, nonfiction
Katherine Russell Rich, nonfiction

Tuesday, June 26 | 7:00 pm
Rafael Campo, poetry
Lesléa Newman, fiction

Wednesday, June 27 | 7:30 pm
Major Jackson, poetry
Lloyd Schwartz, poetry

Hope to see some of you there!