Go Deep with Your Revision
by Elizabeth Solar
I have revised my novel enough times it is nearly unrecognizable from the first draft. The story remains the same, my protagonist encounters the same struggles she faced at the start of our journey together. The time and setting remain the same. So, what’s changed?
My story has always had a compelling premise – I’ve been told -- and descriptions, dialogue a protagonist we might recognize and perhaps empathize with, for good or ill. Dialogue that once served as banter now moves the action along, reflects moods or conditions, and reveals something important about characters and situations.
In a much earlier post, I wrote about putting characters in therapy. The more questions you ask your character, the more clarity you, and they, get about who they are. The questions they won’t or can’t answer? There’s your literary gold. Scratching below the surface, digging deeper into personality, motivations and background is like an archeological exploration. Some days you work hard and come up with a few small grains of sand, and then ka-boom, you hit buried treasure. Self- examination is often effective in life. Why not in art?
I’ve spent years with my characters , in their hangouts, and homes and am as familiar with them as I am with my friends. Perhaps more so. These people and places live in my head many hours a day, even when I’m not writing. I know what they like to do in their spare time, their favorite music, how they handle challenges, and their work ethic. The more I drilled down on specifics - how someone eats a sandwich, a scent that makes them cry, or whether they would rather hail a cab than walk a few blocks. Details say something about a character, and enough of these details create a specific, living human being.
To figure out our purpose in why we write what we write, it’s important to ask ‘Why?’ Why does my protagonist act and react the way they do? Why do they want they want? What happens if they fail to get it? I have examined reasons I have set my story in a particular place and time, and why I introduced certain characters to interact with my protagonist. Interaction and action are the fuel to any plot. Without it, we’re stuck in pages of words and paragraphs that lead nowhere.
At one point I was certain how to tie the messy loose ends of the main character’s journey. After significant trial and error I’m open to allow, rather than force a conclusion. It’s provided more freedom as a storyteller and opened the door to subtle possibilities I would have overlooked had I not let both story and characters breathe.
Our own experience informs how and what we write. With the passage of time, we discover life’s questions are not so easily or glibly answered. That snappy dialogue no longer serves the character who, with the benefit of time and experience is more fully formed, fully alive.
Situations and emotions needn’t be manipulated to follow a particular arc. Letting go of a particular agenda to let our characters find their own footing leads to those surprising and inevitable turning points we live for in literature. Loosening the reigns can reveal plot twists and events that feel more natural and integral to the story.
In the last five years, I have felt the loss of both my parents, a dear uncle. I’ve experienced the passage from hands-on parent to empty-nester. In our collective writers tribe, we have experienced weddings, divorces, children’s mental health crises, cancer, moves, the arrival of grandchildren, returns to school, and balancing our day jobs with the writing life. I look to this group to keep me honest about what I’m writing, and to give honest feedback about what sounds like real life, and what is if not total BS, misguided literary detours.. My tribe serves as the literary equivalent of the girlfriend who tells you about the broccoli between your teeth, or the toilet paper stuck to your shoe before you go out in public, and for that I’m am grateful beyond words. Our collective experience has deepened not just the writing but our bond.
I’m not one to believe tragedy or adversity elevates our literary sensibilities. To suffer for art feels empty and cliché. In life, there is a natural flow to suffering, joys, sorrows and delights. How open we are to the life’s milestones, how we embrace vulnerability, understand someone’s world view or life circumstance, the constant reshaping of our lives and our worlds can’t help but have an impact on what we write. In that way, we cannot see any one character as one-dimensional, self-edit while we’re in the creative flow or settle for a story easily told or resolved.
Real life is hard, messy, and beautiful. Don’t our stories deserve to be as well? When we stand firm in our reality and stretch our imaginations to stand in the shoes of someone else’s reality, our writing deepens with heart, humor and humanity. And that leads to an intimate connection to our reader, and the world.
Writing, like many things in life, is hard. The triumph of our journey is all the sweeter for the messy middles in between our first and final steps. So what’s the real change in my story? It’s my own life changes, experiences and aspirations. And lots of observation and active listening. I may have -dare I say it - evolved. It follows what I choose to write has as well. I still have a way to go, but I’ll to continue to dig until I unearth those riches.
