Jump into:

1. Part II: Care to Revise Your Story? Opening Windows
2. Novel Workshop: Testing Your Idea

You have seven notebooks and two hard drives loaded with story beginnings. You write and write. You write some more. You have ideas galore, characters aplenty, and those first two paragraphs are positively brilliant--because you revise, revise, and revise them over and over again, always trying to forget that you need to finish the goldang story. It's easy to call these paragraph nitpickings by the name "revision." It makes you feel productive. Nearly.

And then you finish a draft. Hallelujah! Now what?

Snip, snip. Get those scissors ready.

Step One: Drink a bottle of wine.

Step Two: Take a walk.

Step Three: Think about something else for five days. Think about anything else. But DO NOT look at your story! Let it have some alone time.

All right, take some deep breaths and let's get back to work.

Of every ten stories Raymond Carver wrote, eight went to the garbage can, one took a slight detour by way of a draft or two before joining its fellows in the trash, and one story made the cut.

Literally.

STORY REVISION

I am lousy at revision. When I revise a story, my revision becomes an entirely different piece of fiction. That's not revision. That's laziness. Your story needs to change, but don't fool yourself into thinking that you're ready to move on to the next piece.

I'm taking a story revision course with Pam Painter. She has a book on the task I'm about to outline and I highly recommend sniffing out a copy for yourself. Meanwhile, get out your scissors, scotch tape and highlighter. Hold on to something. Here we go:

Story Revision: Slicing Your Story into Scenes

Every story can be cut into different scenes, sections of narrative summary, flashbacks and back story. Number each of your sliced sections and then tape them (be ready to pull them down--no super glue) on the wall near your computer, behind the couch where you write your madness into notebooks--wherever you like, just make sure you can pace back and forth with enough elbow room to pull out your hair. Do not fiddle with language. Don't get fussy about clichés right now. Save it for a later revision.

What you have in front of you is the plot, or the narrative. Between the both of you, you and your narrator have chosen to tell your story in this particular order, whether or not the order corresponds with the chronology of the story itself. Why does Jimmy have a flashback in section seven? Why does Lucy Lu decide to narrate some back story in section twelve--back story that takes place chronologically before the story begins? There's nothing necessarily wrong with narrating a chronologically diverse story, but you'd better have a nifty reason for doing it that way.

Story Revision: Mixing the Scenes

Okay. Look at each scene and note when crucial bits of information show up, when major characters are introduced and other relevant details. Make sure that readers are getting all the important parts of the story when they need them. You may understand your character well enough to know why he decides to stuff his sister's mouth with caterpillars, but readers won't understand unless you show them. It might seem obvious to you that eighteen year old Billy wets his pants, but unless you tell your reader that Billy is, in fact, eighteen years old, wears big boy pants, and drinks five liters of Gatorade before going to sleep, the reader will think Billy is a little toddler who wears those rubber pant-protectors. Share your information with your readers, people!

With your story cut up into sections, you'll have an easier time seeing your omissions. And more importantly, you'll have to face the hard truth that some of your precious scenes will need eliminating. What's your story about? What is your character trying to do? If your scene doesn't help your character get from one place to another, you've got to kiss that scene goodbye. There's just no other way. Don't believe me? Think about it this way: YOU may know what your story is about, and YOU may understand that the funny little jewel of a scene in section four is there because it's hilarious and deserves to be served to the public. But your reader trusts that everything in your story is essential. If they believe your scene is essential and then discover that it isn't, they're going to put your story down and go read something that makes sense.

To recap:

1. Cut your story into sections, number them and hang them on the wall to dry
2. Inspect each section for crucial details, and make a note to yourself that your reader will receive a bit of info in scene two or scene fifteen.
3. Does your reader know what you know? More importantly, do you know enough about your own story?
4. Make sure every scene counts. Does each scene lead relentlessly to the conclusion? If you were the reader instead of the writer, would you ask, "Why doesn't Billy simply put down the Gatorade?" If the reader would ask such as a question, you should replace that silly scene about the circus peanuts with a scene about Compulsive Electrolyte Disorder. Make your scenes count, or get rid of them.

Now, make a note of your revised section order, complete with added scenes and notes concerning your deleted scenes. TYPE YOUR REVISED STORY. Do not cut and paste. Do not cut and paste. Do not cut and paste.

Whoo-hoo. My professor says I have a second draft! (Pats self on back).

Jump into:

1. Part II: Care to Revise Your Story? Opening Windows
2. Novel Workshop: Testing Your Idea

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