Revision as Reimagining

There are two things I brought to my work session last night that I think are working very well and are a relatively new experience for me.

I sat down last night in the quiet waiting room outside the sleep lab at Meridian Park hospital and tried to think about how to approach the revision process on my new story. Two pieces of advice from this program resurfaced for me and I really tried to latch on to them. The first came from my current advisor and a conversation we had a while back. He said that you need to love your characters. Not just the protagonist but all of them. There needs to be that concern that comes with loving someone when you are trying to accurately portray them on the page. Only love will allow you to see them clearly.

As I dove back into the draft I realized that I had not sufficiently loved the father in my story. Yes, I had written him but I hadn't considered his personal situation that brought him to the events on the page. I was too involved with Jack, his son, to see him clearly. In writing last night I began to feel the father unfold before me, revealing layers that I had not considered before and I believe this process is beginning to illuminate the text and to make him a more well-rounded character.

The second piece of advice came from a craft talk at a residency in Seaside, I believe. It was about revision being more a process of re-imagining than a process of a more editorial nature. There are many gaps and holes in the story I wrote and I am having to approach the text as if I am writing a new story, imagining scenarios in new and fresh ways. It was a fascinating process because so much is already happening on the page that is informing the new writing.

It was a productive session and I can't wait to return to it this evening. I am going to be working every night this week because I cannot afford to lose a moment's worth of time. I hope that this new approach to the revision process will allow me to experience levels of my own imagination that I have yet to experience and will teach me a deeper level of what revision is meant to be.