Starting the revision process was what was the most difficult for me. Though I had a wealth of comments from the workshops, and a general idea of what I wanted to change, sifting through the comments and then making the decisions about what was and was not relevant was tedious and, in a lot of cases, counterproductive. A lot of the comments I received were conflicting, so what I ended up relying on, when it came to considering the feedback, were issues common concern, issues that were raised by quite a few people. There were several people who were very generous with their commentary and then there were people who would write one or two words, here and there, with little elaboration. Those were the comments I found least helpful and those were the comments I chose to ignore. When I eliminated the “fluff” then the revision process was more streamlined and a lot easier to handle. That feeling of being overwhelmed was relatively brief and, right now, I feel pretty good about the changes I have made. I haven’t worked out any major changes, but the majority of the comments suggest minor tweaks here and there, especially with the poem. My fiction piece is going to consume a lot more time and energy because I feel that the most drastic changes are wrapped up in the structure of the story. Structure seems to be a weaker aspect of my writing, so that is what I have been focusing on in the revision process.
-Samantha Markey
I've found that some of the things that i've done to change my projects have been counterproductive as well. It's difficult to add elements that we see as being good ideas without taking away or changing the direction of the story in a way that is detrimental to the piece. Changing the structure of the story always sucks. I tried that with my fiction piece and wound up making a mess of it at first.
ReplyDeleteD. Ryan
I chose to revise the things that several people commented on as well. The one thing I thought about was what if the ONE thing that someone mentioned (that nobody else did) was really important and could make all the difference? Moreover, is it likely that one person could do that? Certainly if the instructor thinks it's something to be revised I would do it but what if she was the lone dissenter? I guess the revision process will not be as non-complex as I have previously laid out. But I do have a little bit of time to make all of these decisions.
ReplyDeleteCindy Davis
While I'm great at revising the work of my peers (I always let my friends know that if there's more red than black on the page it doesn't mean their work is terrible rather that I can overdo it!) but I admit that I've given someone a revision that has been unhelpful. Either I didn't allot enough time to properly review the work or the work is strong enough that if I recommend a change it could compromise the artistic integrity.
ReplyDeleteWhen I get revisions from peers I tend to look through all of them & immediately cut the fluff revisions--the ones that were only returned to get rid of the paper but lack any significant help. Then, I look for comments that seem to pervade through the majority of revisions. These comments are usually obvious things that I had meant to go back and change anyway. Next comes the frustrating part, comments that exist but do not show up in each revision. I tend to use my own judgement at this point, I fairly weigh the comments but if they do not match up with my vision then I have to put them aside.
While revisions are great, one should remain faithful to the vision he has for his piece.
Nitesh Arora