"I have rewritten- often several times- every word I have ever written. My pencils outlast their erasers." ~Vladimir Nabokov
Hi everyone!
Before I forget, there are a FEW spaces remaining in this Saturday’s (August 10th) 3-in-90 Live Generative Workshop (1:00-2:30 p.m. Eastern Time): “Boldly Going: Drafting with Confidence.” These 90 minute workshops are my most popular classes to date. They’re fun and productive and I absolutely love teaching them! For more information and to sign up go HERE.
As you know, one thing I always stress is the importance of revision. My parting words on the last day of workshop at the Grand Lake retreat earlier this month were: “Let your stories cool, then go back in and revise!” There’s a temptation with flash, as it can be written quickly, to send it out right away, but I ask you to resist this. Almost always, there’s a richer story to be unearthed.
Today, I’d like to share a revision tool that involves seven questions aimed at going deeper to uncover your story’s essential meaning and significance.
It’s best not to worry too much about deep meaning in the drafting phase. This can result in an overwrought, ham-handed story. But the difference between a good flash and a GREAT one is emotional depth and resonance. After the initial draft or two, it’s time to ask the hard questions. Make your story squirm under a bright light! Get the truth out of it, once and for all.
Here, you may or may not find places in your story that beg for further excavation. Often these are the places where you struggled to get the wording right. Or places, upon rereading, that made you a little uncomfortable. The parts that are nagging at your subconscious because they point to something deeper in your story that you’re not addressing yet.
Maybe you got to significance and deeper meaning in your first draft (it happens), but maybe not. By interrogating your story, line by line, you may discover the true “gold” of your story that takes you beyond your initial vision for it, the topsoil.
I'm asking you to look deeper into your initial "ideas."
“So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.” ~George Saunders
The beauty of flash fiction is its ability to suggest far more than is what is on the page. This takes digging. I actually think it’s the most fun part of the process. Okay, let’s get to it!