Madeleine Beckman Hemingway rewrote a manuscript thirty-nine times. Picasso made hundreds of sketches for Guernica. Revision is the process of discovery during which the work s structure, its very meaning changes and grows stronger.
Revision involves a commitment to uncovering what one is wishing to communicate.
Students will work a piece of writing from idea through first and subsequent drafts. Exercises and readings will assist students to go deeper, to open the conduit between mind and paper, to close the gap between intention and result. Students will write and revise, be edited, and edit classmates' work. We will consider such topics as the role of the editor, the editor's relationship to the writer, the text evaluation process, and types of editing in the publication process. We will practice the editorial art on genres including fiction, memoir, essays, and magazine features.