I’ve often compared the writing process to that of the visual artist, who, with brush and pallet knife changes the brightness of shimmering water or adds lines of worry to a face. Expanding the size of a barn or removing a detail in a cityscape is a combination of vision and technique, much like rewriting a scene where the angry character smashes a glass on the floor, rather than simply issuing a glare and calling for the check.
Since I’m not a visual artist I really don’t know how one would respond if a rep from the gallery called and said they didn’t want the painting because the lighting in the scene was too dim, or that there weren’t any people in it to give perspective. The way I see it, if that happened the artist would probably say that the painting was finished; if the gallery, or the patron or customer, wanted more light or more people, that that could be accomplished in another work.
Two months ago I received the results of an agent’s review of my most recent manuscript. What I sent her was the result of numerous rewrites based on several qualified readers’ input. I rewrote, revised, polished and tweaked (does that word mean anything?) my work so much before submitting it that I was convinced it was a star as is.
I was prepared for the agent to ask for some additional changes, but twenty? Some of these had tentacles dug deep into everything. My gut reaction was to holler, “Holy cow, she’s nuts!” But I didn’t. I reminded myself that we were on the same team, wanting the same thing. We both want to get this book published. By eliminating things in my schedule (like sleep and recreation) I charged into the revisions like a person possessed. The point being, unlike my visual artist friends, the changes, no matter how extensive, were possible, and on this book — not the next.
I rewrote the front of the book, oh yeah, the ending, too. I scrapped the slow-moving chronological framework that began in my main character’s childhood. Now as the story opens the main character is an adult in the midst of the primary thrust of the story. The revision cranks up the pace, makes round characters of three who were flat in the earlier version, and introduces a brand new one who helps me connect a character in exile with things happening back home. It was all a matter of vision and technique — her vision, my technique.
Again with the comparison to a painting, my story is still the same, the same truths, the same excitement. However, the new writing, like new brush strokes, ratchets up the tension and connects the past with the future in ways that weren’t happening before.
John Denver once sang, “Thank God I’m a country boy.” My song is similar; “Thank God I’m a writer — or at least, not a visual artist!”
Till later,
Ken