Revision--Let the Fun Begin!

For me, writing a first draft is like giving birth to a 13-pound baby without an epidural. There’s a whole lotta screaming and cursing before a wrinkled, alien creature finally arrives.

Compared to the agony of giving birth to a first draft, revision is the elation of dressing the baby in cute new clothes, pinning a bow in her hair, and playing silly games while counting her fingers and toes. Revision is the place where the true fun and creativity of writing occurs.

This week I’ve not only been revising my short story, “Coyote Justice”, but I’ve also begun teaching a creative writing class on Revision. As I help my students see the problems in their manuscripts, I’m better able to fix my own. In the first class, I asked my students to identify the theme of their stories by telling me what their protagonist wants more than anything else in the world. Most of them answered me with a litany of plot points: he wants to defeat this alien army, or solve this crime, or stop this bully who’s hurting this girl.

“Why?” I ask.

This question stops them cold. Well, because… Because if he doesn’t there will be more aliens and more crimes and more bullying.

“So what?” I say.

Now they’re really flummoxed. They’ve all started writing with great “what if” scenarios that have carried them into the middle of a short story or novel, but most are now floundering as they try to finish. That’s because they don’t know why their characters are doing what they’re doing. And even if an author is not striving to write the next Brothers Karamazov, his characters still must act for a reason. They must be driven by some universal need that goes beyond battles and murders and sex.

Which brings us back to my story, “Coyote Justice.” I too had a good plot idea: while her husband and kids go skiing, a woman takes a walk in the snowy woods and ends up shot. But the story refused to come together until I finally understood the personal stake my protagonist, Police Chief Frank Bennett, has in solving this crime. Frank, a widower, must finally move beyond the death of his own wife and take a risk to find love again.

Once I understood that, the alien baby turned into a beautiful child, and we've been enjoying each other. “Coyote Justice” will appear with two other Frank Bennett short stories in an anthology entitled Dead Drift, to be released next month. If you’re a fan of my Frank Bennett Adirondack mysteries, you’ll be happy to see the folks of Trout Run, NY caught in the throes of crime again. If you haven’t read the three novels in the series, Take the Bait, Swallow the Hook, and Blood Knot, you can read the first chapters on my website http://www.swhubbard.net.