I chose to revise my fiction and non-fiction pieces. I’m not particularly well-versed enough in poetry to justify an attempt to work on that piece, so instead I chose to go with prose.
It’s always interesting to revisit a piece, especially for me since I only tend to spot problems after I have it in my hand and turn it in. Looking back at my fiction piece “Border,” it becomes rather painful for me to read, finding glaring problems in its stilted structure, with the beginning being a major flaw. The characterization could be improved to say the least, and it feels like that it could easily be more fleshed out. The protagonist feels far too… whiny, I suppose, which was partially intended, but maybe taken to an extreme. The idea to completely scrap it and write something else is tempting, but I still feel like it’s just a decent concept that could use some more attention and rearrangements.
The nonfiction piece I was happier with, mostly since I thought the increased presence of dialogue made it flow much better. I tried to focus on showing versus telling and it came out much better than I expected as a result. As always, writing about a rather personal event (even with changing names and taking “creative liberties”) is a bit awkward and embarrassing, but I feel like that story only needs retouching, as opposed to the reworking that my fiction piece needs. It reads and flows well enough for me to be happy with it as is, and I’ll be glad to improve it even more.
It’s much easier to edit and fix a piece that’s already written as opposed to writing an entirely new one, but revision is by far the most important process in making a piece truly work.
"It’s always interesting to revisit a piece, especially for me since I only tend to spot problems after I have it in my hand and turn it in."
ReplyDeleteThis always seems to be the case, in my experience. I think that, in hindsight, we are able to spot things with fresh eyes and new ideas, and even though it sometimes pains us to look back at our old work, we have to remember that that discomfort stems from our own personal growth as writers. We see mistakes and can grow, as writers, through our revision of them.
-Samantha Markey