Revision Strategy #1: Finding the Question
Can you remember why you wrote a particular draft? Did you write it because you couldn't think of anything else, or it was an assignment, or you knew what you wanted to say before you said it? Often the strongest, most insightful writing arises from topics that raise interesting questions for writers--about themselves, or the world around them.
- Choose a draft from your portfolio. This may work best with an essay that you're unsure about including when you submit your final collection.
- Quickly reread the essay.
- On the back of the manuscript, answer the following question:
What do I understand about this now that I didn't understand before I started writing about the topic?
- Next, if you can, build a list of questions--perhaps new ones--that this topic still raises for you. Make this list as long as you can, and don't censor yourself.
- 5. Choose one or more of the questions as a prompt for a fastwrite. Follow your writing to see where it leads and what it might suggest about new directions for the revision. If you can't think of any questions, and there were no particularly interesting discoveries in the draft (step #3), consider choosing another draft to revise for your final portfolio.
From: Bruce Ballenger, Boise State University