I want to start by sharing with you a few of my favorite quotes on revision. This is from Bernard Malamud, "The first draft is the most uncertain, where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better. Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing. I loved the flowers of afterthought." Now, I don't know that all writers would say they love revision, but in my experience, it does seem that some writers much prefer revision to first drafts, whereas other writers much prefer first drafts to revision rule. But the key is they both go together. Toni Morrison once said, "I rewrite a lot over and over again so that it looks like I never did. I try to make it look like I never touched it, and that takes lot of time and a lot of sweat." Also makes too hard to use as an example because her writing, when we get it is so good. Then my favorite quote is from Robert Cormier. "The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon." I'm very much of a trial and error writers or a lot of people's brains would have suffered if I had gone into that field. Now, everyone next is going to write a story. Don't worry, it won't be hard. I'll give you a couple sentences and all you have to do is fill in the blanks. Here's the first sentence. Blank walked into the blank, so just fill in the blanks. Don't agonize too long over what to fill in. Second sentence. He/she went up to the blank and blank. Fill in the blanks. Next sentence. He/she said blank. I told you it wouldn't be hard. If we were in a classroom. What I would do now is go around the room and ask you each to read your story, instead I'll read you mine. Billy Bob walked into the bank. He went up to the teller and handed her a bag. He said, I'm broke today please fill up my Bag. Not exactly a Pulitzer Prize winner, but that's not the point, so you may ask, what is the point? Here's the point. Writing is an act of making decisions over and over. In theory, every word we write as a decision we have made to select the word over all others. But we can't stop and think about every decision. Can't stop and ponder every word before we write it. We'd never get anything done that way. We make decisions quickly, mostly on instinct, grabbing whatever word comes to us first, we write it down and move on without giving much if any thoughts. We have to or all we'd ever write or high cool. In fact, that approaches and effective one for early drafts. If you've taken other courses in this specialization, you know about the value will freewriting of what Betty flowers pulls the madman stage of writing quickly without conscious thoughts. But every word is a decision and every word influences the other words that follow my story. My first word was Billy Bob, choosing to name my character Billy Bob influenced how I thought of him and the words that came later. If I named him Ms. Priscilla thorn whistle, she may well have well entered a different building or said something different than what Billy Bob said. Once I decided he would enter a bank, there are only a few choices as to who or what he might walk up to. Once I chose a teller, there were only a few choices as to what he might do when he reached the teller and what you might say. Now my choices here are pretty much cliche. But each word was a choice influenced by the words that came before it. Let's say now after I'd written this first draft that I really did want to do something with it to make it more than a cliche. What could I do? I could go back to those key words. I chosen the first draft and now I could think about them, consider them, evaluate whether they were the best words I might have chosen. I can take the time to consider my decisions. What if I really had called a character, Ms. Priscilla thorn whistle, or the tall, lanky man dressed all in black? Well, if I had them go into a bar instead of a bank or a church. The point is this writing is a series of choices that we make, but they must be made quickly without much consideration, if at all, in order to get our initial thoughts down. Once we've done that, then is the time we can go back and reconsider those choices. We can take the time to decide if those choices work for us or if we'd like to try something else, that time is called revision. Let me conclude by adding what revision is not. Revision is not editing. They are two separate stages. Revision focuses on content, organization, coherence. Editing focuses on grammar and mechanics. As I once heard another writer say, "Editing is correcting mistakes. Revision is adding virtue."
