What We Talk about When We Talk about Revision

Revision was the topic of discussion during the Writer-in-Residence Reading on March 21st. W&L's own Jasmine Darznik, Deborah Miranda, and R. T. Smith read from their own personal published works after describing the revision process their works undertook during construction. Darznik brought her memior-like novel to read from and described her revision process. She explained that every time she would continue to write her novel, she would reread everything she had read up to that point, and revise as she went along. She said that the beginning portions of her novel were revised over 200 times, and even when she read that afternoon, she revised her work, leaving some parts out as she read aloud. Deborah Miranda took a different approach to revise her poetry. In fact, she had three different revision processes that she exemplified with the three poems that she read. Her first method was to let the poem sit, which Miranda did for 2 years. After that time apart, Miranda said she was finally able to see the poem and revised it. Her second method was to free write and condense from there (very similar to what we do in her ENGL 204 class). The third method I unfortunately cannot remember.... Darn my short term memory. Smith's method of revision is very similar to both Darznik and Miranda's: going over his work and figuring out what he believes fits into his short story and what does not. He even said that he was not afraid to delete entire portions and paragraphs if he felt that that was not the direction he wanted his story to travel.

With all that said, there were some memorable quotes that came out of the Q&A.

One of the answers as to "Why?" was to make "More passionate syntax." This is a great line that, as pointed out, is essential to poetry. With parameters such as 14 line sonnet or a 5 syllable line in a haiku, words are limited, making it essential that each and everyone of them is "passionate." This also applies to writing, which Darznik pointed out in her story from her experience as a student. She described how her teacher demanded Darznik to imagine at the bottom of every page, the "invisible reader" asked, "So what?" An importance of revision is make sure that everything said has meaning.

When asked, "What is the percentage of the time that you condense during revision or expand?" Darznik said, "The fat has to be sizzled down. Seared." Miranda actually gave a percentage, "80-20," believing that most of her work needs to be condensed, however, there are those time where more is necessary, which she used one of her poems as an example.

On fellow asked, "How do you motivate yourself to write?" And my favorite answer was the story Smith gave. I do not remember who the famous people are, but he told a story about a famous author, who I will name Sally, and her husband, Anthony. Sally was having trouble writing her story and became so infuriated she tossed her typewriter out the window and screamed at her husband that she could no longer write and just could not do it. Anthony's response, "Then quit! No one will miss you." Sally then began to write, showing exactly how everyone would miss her without this piece of literature.

Listening to the authors in front of me, I felt like I could most relate to Darznik and Miranda. Every time I reread my poetry, I revise it, either in a huge way or just the small particulars. But I start out with my free write and then condense from there. I'm not quite sure how to wrap this up, but that is what you guys missed (minus Jeremy)!