Revision Strategies

[polymath]

After two months now working as a paid developmental editor (writing tutor) with struggling inexperienced writers, after two months of intensive training and professional development, after having my writing philosophies, ideologies, and practices and strategies turned upside down--literally inverted, made backward--and confirmed that previously to I was on the right trail intuitively, just stalled by indecision, low confidence, doubt, and questioning competence, worried it might be a dead end, only wanting validation and practical application, I lept ahead with my writing when I'd thought I hit another impassable plateau.

I'd already melded organic, intuitive writing and carefully planned writing. I intellectually appreciated what I was doing with theme, rhetoric, setting, plot, idea, character, event, and discourse, but hadn't yet internalized the parts and wholes. Now I see what I'm attempting while I draft write (concept), the finished raw draft is more cohesive and substantive--substantial--easier and more efficient to write and with a clear process ahead toward final fruition. That there are several more stages of draft writing, recursive process strategies: deliberative, purposed, accessible, useful, fulfilling processes.

These past few weeks I've looked to boil down what I've lately learned into a simple sentence, the recursive revision process, which is just a name exposition lacking explanation and detail, like show don't tell, empty meaning for anyone unfamiliar with the reams of meaning inherent therein.

Revision is a process strategy for evaluating dissonances any given reader target might encounter,

so that they may be appreciated beforehand and therefore timely rectified. Audience, you know.

What's missing. What's unrealized for the whole and the parts small and large. What's unclear. What's out of casual-logical or escalating dramatic sequence. What's short in the attitude department. What's shy in the aware alertness and orientation to persons, times, places, and situations arenas. What's not sufficiently dramatic. What's superfluous. In other words, expression, content, and organization focus.

Is this the end I've sought of my investigations of narrative theory? Probably not. Is there an end? I don't think so. Maybe if or once I'm done with what's come before I'll look into what may come. I see wonderous potentials I can barely express at this time. Glorious possibilities. Several recent experiments involving depicting "Second Voice" thoughts for expressing attitude (voice) were delightfully well-received and according to readers fresh and not before seen so effectively written. Huzzah.

[Ryan]

Geeez Polymath.

I'm going to have to print this out and carry it around so that I can try and fully comprehend it.

What'd I tell you about making me feel un-smart.

[Mira]

Huzzah, Polymath!

I'd love to hear more about how your perspective was inverted.

I completely agree that revision is about finding dissonance. My revision process is a smoothing out process. I read and re-read my words watching for the "bumps" - anytime I stop in my reading and have to think about things, or my flow is interrupted or it occurs to me a word would be better here or there. Then I smooth it out.

I love the revision process. I especially like it when it digs into the miniscule, when every word and comma is examined. So much fun, although it can get tiring with long pieces, so it's good to take breaks and alternate with fresh writing in between. Using another part of my mind.

Interesting topic - and it's great to hear about your journey, polymath!

[dios4vida]

What's missing. What's unrealized for the whole and the parts small and large. What's unclear. What's out of casual-logical or escalating dramatic sequence. What's short in the attitude department. What's shy in the aware alertness and orientation to persons, times, places, and situations arenas. What's not sufficiently dramatic. What's superfluous. In other words, expression, content, and organization focus.

This is a great description of the revision process. Look at each aspect of it, each word, sentence, paragraph, scene, chapter, plot, etc. and figure out what's missing. It really does make it seem like something much easier to grasp.

It's encouraging to hear, also, that our incredibly brilliant teacher, our resident Google, polymath, can still find eureka moments that make their writing skills leap forward. There's always more to learn, which means there's always a way to improve our craft.

Huzzah, polymath!

[polymath]

I'd love to hear more about how your perspective was inverted.

Fits and starts episodically over the decades, decades dammit, though they follow the accepted notions of writing education, basic grammar skills first, learning how to write words, sentences, paragraphs, compositions with little at first focus on concept, content, organization, and expression, and purpose beyond assembliing abstract glyphs into accessible albeit incoherent intents and meanings. Why, I asked, did no one get what I wrote, what I intended, what I meant?

Then reflection, deep metacognitive reflection, reflective attempts to answer those questions, meanwhile facing the imposing edifice of reorienting for clarity and concision the million pages I'd wrought.

The first barrier overcome: Acknowledging that I could write what I was inclined to write, wanted to write, must say, and still needed to appreciate purpose and target and outcome;

"Among so many terms in rhetoric, three serve as a compass, even among the larger terms ("trees") in the forest of rhetoric:

• kairos (the opportune moment);
• audience
• decorum (fitting one's speech [writing] to the context and audience)

Together, these terms invoke the rhetorical worldview in which, sensitive to the contingencies of the moment, a speaker or writer tailors words to contexts and audiences towards some discernible result or effect" (Silva Rhetoricae: Terms).

I was already getting to the inversion threshold, though organically from trial and error fails, and needing, desperately needing one more iota of process plan when I stumbled into an essay comparing inexperienced and experienced writers' writing processes and strategies. I still followed somewhat the inexperienced writer strategies although grasping and exploring the experienced writers' strategies. Reading and adopting the ideas of the essay was the glory moment of inversion, basically erasing any resistance to revision and rewriting, and proposing revision methods based on experienced writers' strategies.

Process: An inspiration arises, from intuitive and/or purposed motivations. A freewriting sketch summary to capture the essence of the inspiration. The creative vision emerges. Develop a design plan for evaluating and implementing the concept, content, organization, and expression. So far the straightfoward approach. But then the raw draft writing from the plan, ever loose though, so that intuition and subconscious influences insert themselves from those distant reaches of the mind. That's when the process inverts. Back to square one revision-wise, rewriting actually.

This is where the plot starts moving, not there. The storyline begins here, actually, a third of the way into the raw draft. This raw writing is really pump priming, scaffolding, superfuous to the narrative, but necessary for orientation to the persons, times, places, situations, events, ideas, and voices, and etc., (SPICED) of the story, essay, whatever. Big picture organization and content stuff. But not top level though. Although timely so that top level stuff becomes accessible for revision and rewriting purposes.

Top level, central theme, narrative distance, reader rapport (kairos, audience, and decorum), thus reader surrogate and attitude holder (voice), and original purpose-argument-message-intent-meaning (at least fresh, novel, anyway), and causation, tension, and antagonism features. More concept, content, organization, and expression development.

The stuff that before I inverted my process I thought I had in hand and didn't have to sweat, you know, the learned sequence: mechanical style, craft, voice. Therefore, stuck at the revision resistance side threshold of full realization. But know now in my heart and mind and spirit revision's a constant and ongoing recursive reflective process oscillating and reverberating in the micro and macro degrees encompassing the whole and the most discreet minutia as a snythesis of the totality.

[Rachel Ventura]

Fits and starts episodically over the decades, decades dammit, though they follow the accepted notions of writing education, basic grammar skills first, learning how to write words, sentences, paragraphs, compositions with little at first focus on concept, content, organization, and expression, and purpose beyond assembliing abstract glyphs into accessible albeit incoherent intents and meanings. Why, I asked, did no one get what I wrote, what I intended, what I meant?

Then reflection, deep metacognitive reflection, reflective attempts to answer those questions, meanwhile facing the imposing edifice of reorienting for clarity and concision the million pages I'd wrought.

The first barrier overcome: Acknowledging that I could write what I was inclined to write, wanted to write, must say, and still needed to appreciate purpose and target and outcome;

"Among so many terms in rhetoric, three serve as a compass, even among the larger terms ("trees") in the forest of rhetoric:

• kairos (the opportune moment);
• audience
• decorum (fitting one's speech [writing] to the context and audience)

Together, these terms invoke the rhetorical worldview in which, sensitive to the contingencies of the moment, a speaker or writer tailors words to contexts and audiences towards some discernible result or effect" (Silva Rhetoricae: Terms).

I was already getting to the inversion threshold, though organically from trial and error fails, and needing, desperately needing one more iota of process plan when I stumbled into an essay comparing inexperienced and experienced writers' writing processes and strategies. I still followed somewhat the inexperienced writer strategies although grasping and exploring the experienced writers' strategies. Reading and adopting the ideas of the essay was the glory moment of inversion, basically erasing any resistance to revision and rewriting, and proposing revision methods based on experienced writers' strategies.

Process: An inspiration arises, from intuitive and/or purposed motivations. A freewriting sketch summary to capture the essence of the inspiration. The creative vision emerges. Develop a design plan for evaluating and implementing the concept, content, organization, and expression. So far the straightfoward approach. But then the raw draft writing from the plan, ever loose though, so that intuition and subconscious influences insert themselves from those distant reaches of the mind. That's when the process inverts. Back to square one revision-wise, rewriting actually.

This is where the plot starts moving, not there. The storyline begins here, actually, a third of the way into the raw draft. This raw writing is really pump priming, scaffolding, superfuous to the narrative, but necessary for orientation to the persons, times, places, situations, events, ideas, and voices, and etc., (SPICED) of the story, essay, whatever. Big picture organization and content stuff. But not top level though. Although timely so that top level stuff becomes accessible for revision and rewriting purposes.

Top level, central theme, narrative distance, reader rapport (kairos, audience, and decorum), thus reader surrogate and attitude holder (voice), and original purpose-argument-message-intent-meaning (at least fresh, novel, anyway), and causation, tension, and antagonism features. More concept, content, organization, and expression development.

The stuff that before I inverted my process I thought I had in hand and didn't have to sweat, you know, the learned sequence: mechanical style, craft, voice. Therefore, stuck at the revision resistance side threshold of full realization. But know now in my heart and mind and spirit revision's a constant and ongoing recursive reflective process oscillating and reverberating in the micro and macro degrees encompassing the whole and the most discreet minutia as a snythesis of the totality.

Whoa. I like pie.

[dios4vida]

Whoa. I like pie.

Yup. Lots of us feel that way around poly. You'll get used to it, and then one time you'll be reading a post and go "whoa! I understood that!" And then you'll feel amazing about yourself for understanding the concepts of our great resident Google - until the next time, when you just can't fathom what's being said.