Revision Lesson

I have written a draft of an essay on running, and my friends Jaime and Lisa. At least, I think that’s what it’s about. It’s also about my children, specifically, Hadley. Also, Snapchat and Instagram. I wish it weren’t about Snapchat and Instagram.

Right now, there are parts of my essay that I like, but it’s mostly a mess. The parts that I don’t like, are the parts that are most important. They are clunky and melodramatic, and I sound crazy. I know this is because these are the parts where I’m most uncomfortable. Those are the Snapchat and the Instagram parts. They are the scapegoats for all my fear and anguish over Hadley having the audacity to grow up. 

Hadley’s coming of age has been a theme of my writing for some time now, which is another stumbling block. Shouldn’t I get over this fact of life already? Isn’t it time to move on? It’s not like this is a shock. Her growing up is what’s supposed to happen.

Which leads me to deeper, more uncomfortable truth: I am projecting how I feel about myself onto Hadley. I believe I am going through a coming-of-age of my own. I feel uncomfortable, uncertain, scared, and sad. It’s very similar to how I felt in junior high, how I felt entering high school, and then college. It’s similar to how I felt trying to make friends after I was married, and then again after becoming a mother. This time though, instead of managing my own feelings, I am putting those fears and anxieties on to Hadley. After all, if I can’t handle my own self, how can I handle Hadley?

But then this – is it my job to handle Hadley? Shouldn’t I be showing her how to handle herself? Maybe then, what I’m going through, if I can go through it honestly, could be a gift for Hadley. Here’s a woman who is becoming. Again and again, I can show her. 

Somehow, I’d like to take the reader through these gnarly woods and then out again, and that means going back to those uncomfortable parts and figuring out how to turn them into a story. 

Staring at my words while rocking back and forth is one strategy for revising. But here’s another one I’ve used, and that I will use for my current essay. Let’s call it, “Read to Write.” If you would like to participate, you will need the following:

1. A book of short essays, or short stories. I’ll be using The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. C+C essays are great for this, as are essay in literary magazines. I also like the short essays in the back of Notre Dame Magazine.

2. Four different colored pens. For the sake of instruction, here are each of the colors I will use, and what they represent:

   1. Red = problems/conflict

   2. Blue = feelings

   3. Green = action

   4. Orange = characters

3. A typed up draft of your own writing.

First, read the essay or short story once, to get a sense of the plot. Next, choose a color. I like to start with orange, and in this case, circle all the characters in the story.

Next, underline every action in green. Underline the problems/conflict/tension in red, and finally any feelings in blue. You might find that you’ll need to write the feelings down in the margin because many writers don’t write, “Jenny was sad.” Instead, they make us feel Jenny’s sadness.

Once you’ve read the story 3-4 times, write down some observations about it. Don’t consider whether the story is good. Rather, think about what you notice. Which color is used the most? What does this tell you about the story? Does the author name feelings or describe them? How much conflict do you notice? Do feelings, conflict, or action move the story forward? Is it a combination of all three? What is this story trying to say?

Once you’ve completed that exercise, do the same thing with a typed up draft of your writing. Make your observations, including the above questions. This time though, ask yourself these additional questions:

• What am I trying to say?

• What does my essay need more or less of?

  I wrote pages and pages about my run with Lisa and Jaime, and found that there was too much description of the place we ran, and too much reflection (as I alluded to at the beginning of this lesson) about social media. I also realized how much I was projecting my own fear and uncertainty on to Hadley. I needed to find a story that could show that, but also show me moving past my fear (or, at least alongside it). I decided to cut a thousand words of the running scene, and put other scenes that revolve around what it is I really want to tell both Hadley and myself: You don’t have to be good. I needed more characters: Lisa, Jaime, my friend Alison, Hadley, myself, and also, two fictional characters from Gary Schmidt’s novel, Orbiting Jupiter, to illustrate this message. Completing this exercise also made me realize that I needed more action and less reflection in my story.

Of course, this is just one way to think about revising your work. This won’t always be the answer to all your writing troubles. But I think of writing much in the same way I think of my growing teenage daughter – I’m doing all that I can in order to let her spread her wings and fly away. My hope is the story flourishes when it’s no longer in my hands.