Do not reprove the scorner, the
writer of Proverbs warns, “lest he hate thee.” Rather, “rebuke a wise man, and
he will love thee.”
“Give instruction to a wise man,”
Proverbs Chapter 9 continues, “and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and
he will increase in learning.”
As you revise your own writing and
as you accept revision and criticism from others, be the wise man and be wiser.
Be the just man, and increase in learning.
It’s natural for any writer to
defend what he or she has written. A lot of time, a lot of labor, and a lot of
love go into the stories we create. But we do ourselves, our stories, and our
readers a great disservice if we don’t revise, or if we stop revising too soon.
In April 2016, author Obert Skye
delivered a talk at TEDx Idaho Falls in which he calls revision “frustratingly
magical.”
He imagined as a child sitting down
in a warm field to write, and writing a wonderful story on the first try. That,
of course, never happened. Instead, he discovered the best stories came to him
through revision. "Good ideas can get lost or become hidden or never
discovered,” he says, “if they are buried under the laziness and misconception
of a job well done."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqK6-ePxPa8
A scorner might say that revision
piled upon revision shows a story not worthy of being told in the first place.
In some cases they might be right. But to the keen writer, who realizes
imagination ought to play second fiddle to the inspiration that comes through revision,
wisdom comes.
Skye continues: “Revision is
understanding. It is long-suffering. It is inquisitive, it solves things. It is
the detective of writing.”
The scorner compares what is written
to a human baby: Precious, darling, worthy of protection at all costs.
But truth be told there are some
ugly, ugly babies out there.
A friend of the family has a way
around saying a person’s baby is ugly. Presented with a homely child, she
simply says, “Oh, what beautiful hair.” And the hair can indeed be beautiful,
even if the baby it’s attached to is not.
Nathan
Shumate, author of the web comic Cheap Caffiene, says recognizing that ugliness
is essential for artists and writers.
“Even
with my literal babies,” he says, “whose birth I attended in all four instances,
I did not think they were beautiful because I loved them. I loved them, yes,
but I also acknowledged that they looked like all newborns do: like red,
wrinkly turds.”
http://lousybookcovers.com/?p=10780
Maybe
this all sounds cruel. But as with the Ugly Duckling, the ugly baby with the
beautiful hair, the red, wrinkly turds outgrow their homeliness and become more
beautiful as time goes on.
This
is what the wise man knows, when it comes time to revise. The wise man looks at
what he has written and sees at once the beautiful hair and the wrinkly
turdiness of what lies before him.
The
wise man knows at revision, the ugliness, the turdiness is replaced – slowly at
times – with the stately white feathers of the swan that was once, in Hans
Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, called a turkey egg, incapable of swimming.
And
when he or she considers the job well done, it can be time once again to set
that wrinkly turd aside for a while and then look at it with fresh eyes to see
again if the hair is more beautiful than the babe who bears it.
The
wise man knows, and listens to the hen, even through their own duckling scorn:
"You don't understand me,"
said the duckling.
"Well, if we don't, who would? [says the hen] Surely you don't think you are cleverer than
the cat and the old woman-to say nothing of myself. Don't be so conceited,
child. Just thank your Maker for all the kindness we have shown you. Didn't you
get into this snug room, and fall in with people who can tell you what's what?
But you are such a numbskull that it's no pleasure to have you around. Believe
me, I tell you this for your own good. I say unpleasant truths, but that's the
only way you can know who are your friends. Be sure now that you lay some eggs.
See to it that you learn to purr or to make sparks."
The hen offers a tough love, to be sure
– and the duckling tires of it. But when you are a writer, when you are a wise
writer who truly revises, it pays to have those friends who will tell you those
unpleasant truths. If you’re on the first draft, the third or fourth revision,
and are surrounded by people who say you are doing well, expand your circle of
friends. Find a few who will honestly tell you that what you’ve created needs
more work.
Because it does.
And that’s okay.
As I write Doleful Creatures, I recognize the
story’s beauty has evolved. It was an ugly duckling after the first draft. After
the tenth draft – though it had grown a bit and started to lose its turdiness
and grow into its beautiful hair by then. Now on revision fourteen, I begin to
see – begin, note – that had I settled for a job well done (and
self-publishing, electronic publishing, lets a job well done be nearly
instantly awarded) when if I worked harder, many ideas hidden and undiscovered
would come to light. And what a glorious light it is.
Poet Gregory Orr writes of
“process[ing] experience” as he writes. “I take what’s inside me – the raw,
chaotic material of feeling or memory – and translate it into words and then
shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem. This process
brings me a kind of wild joy. Before I was powerless and passive in the face of
my confusion; but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience.”
Note the words translate and shape.
That is what revision is. Drafting or writing is taking memory or imagination
and pressing it through a Play-Doh Fun Factory. Revision is taking the
resulting mess and making something of it. Revision allows our brains to look
at what exists and see what can be added to make it better – revision triggers
our brains into thinking of everything, not just what’s idling on the surface.
And maybe revision means killing
that initial vision. Or that beloved character. Or that tone. Or that narration
style, Or that scene.
Revision makes us wiser. And yes,
sometimes sadder.
But Meredith Wilson has an anthem
for revision:
I
flinch, I shy, when the lass with the delicate air goes by
I
smile, I grin, when the gal with a touch of sin walks in
I
hope, I pray, for Hester to win just one more A
The
sadder but wiser girl for me!
Rebuke a wise man, and he will love
thee.
Be that wise man. Revise.
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