by Karen Carter
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Boswell visited Lighthouse and told us everything we needed to know about fiction writing. His novel, Tumbledown, hit the local bestseller list the following weekend.[/caption]
When Robert Boswell began his September 23rd workshop at Lighthouse, he emphasized the need to not only revise a work of fiction but to write MANY multiple drafts of a piece. I took this literally, and during a break mid-way through the class asked him what I hoped was a stupid question: “When you say authors ought to ‘write’ multiple drafts of a piece, do you mean they should actually retype them?” Like, over and over again? I was relieved to hear his patient explanation that he meant one should rework a draft to get to a new draft, not actually retype a manuscript each time. Saving old drafts so any cut material might be used later is fine. Sticking stubbornly with an early draft is not.
Phew.
Onward to another pointer that certain writers (like yours truly) resist to the detriment of their literary output: Write badly to get a full draft. Resist the urge to revise while you write. Write the draft that will take you to the next draft, and to the next draft, and to the next. Consider each of these versions transitional. Feel free to save them but use them as stepping stones, not a closed gate. (I added that last line. Clever, huh?)
As Robert Boswell much more aptly put it, you can’t dribble a basketball and shoot it at the same time. Anyone who’s ever picked up a basketball knows this to be true. Dribble first, then shoot. Write first, then edit. Once you’ve done that a few dozen times, feel free to pass your masterpiece on to your favorite reader, agent, or editor. But first you need to write. And edit. And do it again. Over and over.
But take heart: Robert Boswell also offers up strategies to ensure your transitional drafts will result in ever-improved new drafts until the underlying meaning and surprise of an entire piece is discovered. The key is to follow the steps noted below while looking for windows through which you can enter into your story and unearth its underlying truths. Sound impractical? Consider these very practical tips to making this happen:
Workshop your story. Write down all comments, even those that seem a bit off. Prioritize any problems raised by ranking them according to their “approachable” factor. Pick one of the easier-to-fix issues and fix it. Return to the list. Tackle the next most difficult issue. Repeat. Devote an entire new draft to fixing one of the more complex problems. MEANWHILE, keep your eyes open for those windows of opportunity. Is it raining? Then the girl in the story needs a raincoat, right? Who will give it to her? Is it winter? In North Dakota? Then the boy who ran away would have left footprints in the snow. Such seemingly unimportant changes can lead to a surprising turn of events—or turn of a phrase—that reveals what’s really going on.
By the time you get to the most difficult issue, you may discover you’ve already addressed it during the previous rewrites thanks to your willingness to explore new avenues into the story you’re trying to tell. Robert Boswell explains that while focusing on the mundane easy-to-address problems with your manuscript, you “bore the linear part of the brain” and “allow the narrative part of the brain to take over”…and do the heavy creative lifting. All because you’re writing without editing. Your prize: a powerful new transitional draft that will ultimately result in an even more impactful finished piece of creative writing.
Your goal as an author: to keep your story alive, keep it permeable. To use “revision as invention to keep the story breathing so something can happen.” By doing this and entering into any openings that might reveal your story’s underlying meaning, you allow your fiction to show you—and your readers—“the tiny crack that can lead to the big divide.”
