English 151/2/3
Final Fiction Revision
Due Dates
Wed 3/9:
Journal #10 due. Bring also the piece you are revising for some in-class time with revision
experiments.
Fri 3/11: Report on a Literary Journal due. You’ll present your findings to the class.
Mon 3/14: Bring your revision for workshop discussion. Bring it in whatever state it is in—half cut to
pieces, with three new choices for openings, whatever. No need to make copies. We will
exchange feedback on whatever the current state of your revision is and whatever your
current questions are about it.
Wed 3/16: Final Fiction Revision Due.
Fri 3/18: Last day of class. Presentation of Gifts.
Points: 40
Format and order: The Revision Reflection and the Final Revision should be double-spaced.
Experiments may be single-spaced. In a folder, envelope, or very strong binder clip, include all
elements, in this order:
1. Your Revision Reflection (about 500-700 words) This is a narrative in which you
describe your revision process. Talk about how you developed your piece, what choices
you made, what revision experiments you tried, and what their effects were. Talk about
how you decided, after all the experiments, what your final piece should be. The more
detail here, the better, as detail reveals your involvement with the revision process. Like
the poetry revision Reflection, this is a very in-depth look at your revision process.
2. Your brilliant, wonderful, original, and polished Revision.
3. Your three required Revision Experiments (and more if you've done more).
4. Other notes and drafts, if any exist.
5. The original version that you first turned in to me and that your group commented on.
Preferably, the exact copy with my comments.
The General Assignment: From any of the four fiction pieces you’ve written so far, choose one
to revise. Do at least three Fiction Experiments from the list provided below, and do everything
else you can to revise this piece into something finished and polished. It can remain as a series
of scenes, or you can work toward a finished story. See further explanation below.
What is a revision? Your revision might end up adding scenes, and making your piece longer,
taking the story further. Or it might not--you might still stay with the same basic scenes. Either
way, the piece will be worked with extensively. In this class, a revision is a piece of writing that
you’ve thought about, re-worked, re-made, and thought about some more until your head
explodes. You probably have some changes that you know you want to make—things that have
come up in your workshop discussion and from my feedback, so your revision will likely make
those changes. But I would also like you to take this opportunity to enlarge your imagination of
what your story might be, and to let yourself create something you couldn't have thought of
when you first started.
Your revision might end up using a lot of the material that results from the experiments—or it
might not. Either way, you’ll have made some discoveries about what’s possible. The
experiments are to help you find depth in your work, to help you find things in it that you don't
know yet are there, to enable you to find more ways to write. Consider the following:
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A good piece of fiction is so original it makes us shiver and tingle. Even if it uses age-old
plot elements, something about the approach is new and interesting.
The way the words are put together surprises us--the words are really working to get
across something this author and only this author could say.
The story goes where we wouldn't expect, or it gets to an expected place in a surprising
way.
Often something about the writing surprises the writer too--the characters took on lives
of their own, or the story touched something deep that the writer didn't know it was
going to.
Everything in it counts, every word, image, and action.
Everything in it not only counts, but counts double--for example, description can carry
the plot forward, dialogue can deepen the conflict, etc.
Use the elements of craft we've been learning about: Ways of revealing character,
significant detail, setting, scene, summary, flashback, etc.
Show Show Show! Use detail, image, gesture, dialogue, and action to convey the story.
Tell a story in specific scenes that dramatize the main events of the story.
Use narration and summary where you want to move quickly to the next scene, cover
something that's not a main turning point, or provide some background information.
However, first make sure it wouldn't be better to convey this information by showing.
Consider all the ways or showing character, and of using fictional place and time.
Make sure the point of view is consistent and believable. If you shift points of view,
make sure the shift is clear to the reader.
Clear up confusions readers might have.
Edit your dialogue tags: Always try to get the dialogue and action to convey what's going
on, rather than the letting the dialogue tag do the work. Compare "'You make me mad,'
he said angrily," to "'I can't stand this.' He swept his arm across the table so all the
dishes crashed to the floor." Sometimes you don't need dialogue tags at all.
Go over every word carefully and make sure you need it. Rewrite and reshape sentences
so that every word adds something.
Make sure any errors in grammar or spelling are deliberate, serving a purpose, required
to convey voice and character.
Grading of the Revision
Reflection, 10 points. The reflection describes your revision process detailing your experiments
and their results, discussion your decisions, and showing you actively involved with every word
of your piece; it shows how you have urged your piece to find its true being, meaning,
language, tone, imagery, music, and form. If you have purposely used unconventional grammar
or punctuation or formatting, discuss your reasons here.
The depth of the experimentation, 10 points: The three experiments are included, and drafts
are both included and described in your Reflection. The drafts and experiments show you
working not only with small-scale decisions of word-choice and sentence, but also with the
larger development of theme or idea. The drafts show you discovering what the story wants to
be and do. Your whole revision package shows that you have deeply explored the possibilities
of your work, tried this and that, adding material, taking material away, evaluating each change
and deciding what to do with it. The revision shows that each word, sentence, image, or action
has been chosen for its effect on the reader and on the piece as a whole.
The quality of the result, 15 points: The revision should show that you have worked to improve
the quality of your writing, practicing to
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express yourself by means of image, and action, and the music of language rather than
by generalization; to show rather than to tell;
use sentence rhythms to convey meaning;
make every word count, and count double, using language compactly;
eliminate clichés;
consider the elements We've studied: creating believeable characters and dialogue,
establishing the location, managing time with scene and summary, developing conflict,
making all detail significant, showing as opposed to telling, etc.
clarify distracting confusions;
create a strong opening and a strong ending;
surprise yourself
and last but not at all least, the revision shows that you have tried your best to be
brilliant and original, to say new things in new ways, to get at complex meanings that
you may not have known about when you started, which only literature is complex
enough to express. Take risks with your writing!
Polish of surface, 5 points: The revision has been carefully proofread. It finds and corrects
unintentional errors of grammar and syntax. The revision's appearance on the page is as you
intend. Variations on conventional grammar and punctuation are explainable according to the
demands of form and tone and voice and character. I recommend that if you are using
intentional unconventional elements (for example sentence fragments, grammar errors, lack of
punctuation, or partial punctuation), you discuss them in your Reflection to let me know that
they are deliberate. Otherwise, if they read to me like mistakes, I will assume they are mistakes,
and grade accordingly.
THE FICTION REVISION EXPERIMENTS
Instructions: Choose at least three of these experiments to work with during your fiction
revision process. You may do more! The results might end up as part of your actual revision, or
they might not. They might provide ideas about your revision without actually ending up in your
revision. They might totally take over your revision and send it in new directions. Keep notes on
the experiments you do and their results, and write about them in your Reflection.
The Experiments
(not in any particular order)
1. Do everything your readers suggest: Follow the suggestions of any comments you
received, then, after you've made those changes, make your own decision about
whether they work or not.
2. If the original version didn't precisely follow the assignment, write a version that more
closely follows the assignment, and see what happens.
3. Do a word count of your story, and cut it down by 25%.
4. Brainstorm a list of alternative names for your characters. Think of several possible
names for each character, and consider if any of these names would be better than the
names you have. Why or why not? What are the effects of the names you've currently
chosen, and what would be the effects of these different names?
5. Write three alternative openings for your story, each one a few paragraphs long. Let
each one start from a different moment in the story: somewhere from the current
beginning, somewhere from the current middle, and somewhere near or at the current
end. Consider what new possibilities are created by these alternative openings?
6. Edit out every word or phrase that seems the least bit dull or familiar. Decide if it needs
replacing with something more original, or if it was better the way it was, or if it is
necessary at all.
7. Make a map or outline of your plot, showing where the moments of conflict are
(internal or external, between characters or within a character, and showing where
power shifts between characters. Who is “winning” at any one moment?
8. Make a map or outline of your plot, showing where there is connection or disconnection
between characters. At what moments to characters connect? Where do they reject
each other? Is someone included or excluded?
9. Experiments with scenes: Stories are usually told by means of scenes. What scenes
already exist in your story? Could any of these scenes be expanded so as to accomplish
more? What if your story were to be told by means of other scenes? Which would they
be? Are there undeveloped places in your story that would be interesting to develop
into full-fledged scenes? What would happen if some currently minor places in the story
got developed into lengthy scenes? What would happen if what currently is told by
means of summary and narration were to be illustrated in a scene instead?
10. Here's another way to experiment with scenes: Print out a hard copy of your story. Cut
it apart into its individual components of scene, summary, and flashback. Number them
according to the order in which they currently appear. Now lay them out on the floor or
a table and start rearranging. How many scenes do you have? Are they all necessary?
Can some be combined? Should some summary be turned into scene? Are there gaps
where another scene needs to be created? What happens if you rearrange the sequence
of events?
11. Intensify the conflict. Make the tension greater. Add conflict on top of conflict. Don't be
afraid to overdo it, since you can back it off later.
12. Explore the main character further by writing more from that character's point of view.
You might have them write a diary entry, an e-mail, a letter, etc. See if this can tell you
more about who your character is and what their motives are. Don't worry about
whether this writing fits into your final story or not.
13. Interleaving expansions: Read your piece carefully, hunting for every word or phrase
that seems even the slightest bit general, or that you have even the slightest inclination
to say more about. Look for those places where you may have been in a hurry during
the early drafts, or where you may have given up in the frustration of trying to describe
things accurately. Insert after every one of these, more detail, development,
description, imagination--whatever is appropriate for the situation. As you do this, you
may discover that you can cut out the original generality and substitute one of these
other images. Or you may discover an idea or theme you didn't know was there. Or?
14. Highlight all uses of the verb "to be" in any form. Cut them and focus on using a more
active, dynamic verb. do the same thing with any use of the verb "to become." To do
this, you’ll probably have to radically rearrange syntax; simply substituting other verbs
doesn’t necessarily do the trick.
15. What if the piece has a different source, a different motive? Rewrite the story or poem
as if it is a message to your lover. As if it is to your mother. As if it is to a stranger. As if
someone else is telling the story.
16. Freewrite on a motif or symbol: Let yourself write as much as you can, brainstorming
about all the different forms your motif or symbol can come in, and what it might mean.
For example, I'll start a freewrite on the motif of "lips": Certainly they're on people.
Lipstick prints on glasses. The lip of a tunnel or hole--scary, the unknown, a turning
point. Don't give me any of your lip. Fat lips, thin lips. Thin lips--anger or prudery...
17. Research an element of your piece: Maybe there's a subject in your story interesting to
know more about, or that you need vocabulary for. If you're writing about a character
who's having chemotherapy, it might to interesting to know more details about how
chemotherapy works, for example.
18. Let your characters dream: Write down your characters' (or speaker’s) dreams. Be loose,
wild, imaginative; don't worry about meaning or believability. Read over what you've
written. Possible you'll be able to include one of these dreams in your fiction. Or maybe
you can include some of the elements of these dreams in other ways. For example, if
your character has a dream of a flight of crows blocking the sky, maybe you can make
her black hair shine like crow feathers, or her eyes take a long time to adjust to the
darkness in a room when she suddenly comes in out of the sun. If a character dreams
that she can't get out the door and go to work because she can't find her shoes, and
then when she does find them there are two left ones only, and then when she finds a
right shoe it has no laces, you can give your character some similar kind of shoe problem
as she's getting ready to go to work. See if you can use the images from the dreams in
any way that helps to develop the conflict or the characters in your story.
19. Experiment visually: Here are a few possibilities, and probably you can invent others:
Draw a picture of your character. Draw a map of the setting. Illustrate your poem or
story. Draw panels as in a comic book. Make a collage of elements from your poem or
story.
20. Answer these questions: Who is the protagonist? What is his or her goal? What does he
or she want? What internal characteristic keeps him or her from getting it? What
external force keeps him or her from getting it? What factors complicate the situation?
What character trait enables the protagonist to solve (or not solve) the situation and get
(or not get) what he or she wants?
Then, cut any scene or narration or sentence or word that is not relevant to the plot you
outlined above, or re-write it so it becomes relevant.
21. Experiments in point of view: Choose a passage from your fiction, and re-write it from a
different point of view.
22. Make up your own revision game (make sure your Reflection describes it).