Running Revisions

In case you didn't know, I'm a creative writing major in my last semester of university. If I were asked for a word that defines this time in my life, it would be REVISION. I'm editing everything in my life, choosing what lessons to keep and what to throw away, solidifying the characters I've grown to love and picking off the ones that bog me down. People who I thought were friends have proven their true colours, and things I thought I knew turn out to be something completely different. As a writer, it's difficult to separate the way I view life and the way I conceptualize my stories.

Revision is a key element of the writing process. Tom Jenks goes so far as to claim that "in essence, writing is revision." Any writer that has tried to get their work published knows the frustration and confusion brought on by the need for revision. How does one know what to change? But I really like this line--do I have to take it out just so I can feel like I've done something to the piece? How do you know when you're done revising and the piece is as good as it can be? The answer: you don't.

Maureen Johnson wrote a blog about the process of revision that she follows, and I typed out her four guidelines onto a sticky-note on my desktop. They've been useful questions to ask and rules to follow when I work on my stories, but as my senior year has gone on, I find that I've begun to apply the same rules and questions to my own life.

1) How much time do I have?

When you're staring down the barrel of a gun named Graduation, it can be difficult to actually enjoy the fact that it's your last year of university. Instead of looking forward to freedom, I've sunk into reminiscing over junior year and the way January 2010 was nothing but relaxed reading and trips with my family. These days, even the new Trenta size that Starbucks offers is tempting. One all-nighter in two weeks? Try three consecutive nights without a wink, and follow that up with two midterm exams and you have my last week in December.

I mark down the days left until finals (34, to be exact), and the number immediately sends my shoulders slumping in dismay. Just over a month to get my life into order and prove that I'm worthy of the cap and gown I've been dreaming of for six long years.

There can be no room for fear, not to mention time. When I revise, the deadline always looms near, pushing me to buckle down and be more ruthless and objective. With only one week left in January, there's no accounting for cowardice or laziness. It's now or October, and I've made too many plans for the HP premiere in July to fail now. Revision, whether in life or on the page, is always marked by time. You should already know your characters well enough to understand how they work and how your words help or hinder them. You should already know the habits that break your stride and the things that keep you going.

2) What is the most broken thing [about the story]?

The second story I wrote for my first fiction workshop was a love story set in the Salem Witch Trials. I was so proud because I'd managed to put in a twist no one expected: the boy would be the one to hang the girl who loved him. The reviews of my story were generally positive, except that each and every classmate wanted to know more about Thomas. Who was he? How did he fall in love with Hope? Why didn't he do anything to save her, if he really loved her? Suddenly, there was a big, Thomas-shaped question mark in a story that I thought said all it had to say.

The experience taught me that there is always at least one big thing that is broken in any story that a writer creates. It may be something that simply stirs the reader's curiousity or a huge gaping smoking hole that needs a good dousing by the author. Whatever it is, the author has a responsibility to the story to find that broken piece and transform it. Similarly, knowing your priorities is extremely important in life. These days, I find that my friends and batchmates are torn between living it up during the last three months of being a senior and getting to work on all the crazy deadlines that haunt our every night. For some of us, the struggle won't end in a diploma. But the obligation is there to fix up the broken parts of our lives and present a shinier work-in-progress on that stage.

3) Don't be afraid to edit big.

I love creating characters. Ever since I was a child, I loved to pick out names from baby books and imagine what kind of people they'd belong to, whether a Jonathan would be kind or a Bianca ditzy. Creating characters like the ones that occupy my thesis now are part of the reasons why writing is part of my nature. People are fascinating to me.

That said, it's understandable that I'm pained every time I have to set a character aside in the interest of improving the story. NaNoWriMo writers joke about adding a new character or killing one when things get slow and tedious. In revision, the joke isn't as funny. Writers strive for an organic unity in the story, and the characters one includes can either help build that unity or break it down. When they do the latter, removing them from the story can make more sense. Sometimes it's just necessary to leave a favorite character behind to give the story more room to breathe.

We all have those people in our lives. We may have known them for years or just a few months, but sooner or later, it becomes clear that there's just nothing there anymore. Sometimes the need for separation, for an editing of one's friends or acquaintances, is clearer, like when they've done something to hurt us or damaged us in some way. Sometimes it's a quieter realization. But it's a trial everyone goes through. Graduation means that, in all likelihood, we may never see each other again. Who is truly important to us and who can we do without?

4) Things are never as hopeless as you may think.

After the all-nighters and the hair-pulling and the stomach-clenching and the tears, sometimes it's easy to forget that there will be something worthwhile in the end. A story may seem impossibly difficult to edit properly. Classes with a difficult professor may seem endless. Life may seem like a laughing jester, delighting in one's torment. But you've lived and written and worked this long. So maybe it'll never be perfect. What's one more push in the grand scheme of things? For this girl, it's everything.

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2 days to social theology immersion.

14 days to the Fine Arts Festival Book Launch.

20 days to the thesis presentation.

34 days to final exams.

72 days to my flight back to Toronto.