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Exercise #349: Craft
Posted 1/1/10
In continuing with using your suggestions for Craft exercises, I give you this one, prompted by Anna Edmonds and Pat Hebert.
From Anna, “A particular area of writing that I struggle with is deciding when a piece is finished. It seems never. Each time I click ‘save’ I think I’ve finally completed my work. But every time I bring it back up I find words that don’t quite express what I meant, a sentence that needs restructured or deleted altogether, a comma missing, or an idea needing fleshed out further.”
From Pat, “When is a novel done and how do you balancing letting it be what it is with perfecting every chapter?”
Thanks to both of you for a great suggestion. Here’s what it morphed into.
First, answer the questions posed:
* How do you decide when your piece is done?
* How often do you review a piece before you consider it done? (How many drafts, on average?)
* How do you “let go” of a piece, so that you can look at it later and not tweak it?
* Any suggestions regarding when to stop tweaking?
Next, if you want to, do some free-writing. Set a timer for five or ten minutes and use the word “finished” as your seed. When the free-writing is done, revise your work to a draft you can share (second draft, if you’re counting the free-write as the first draft).
Let the piece sit for awhile; at least overnight but longer if possible. Rewrite or revise, as you see fit.
For your SUB, post the answers to the questions, and both revisions of your free-write (not the original free-write, please). If you want to, you may add an answer to this question:
* What do you think is still missing from your free-write piece?
Critiquers, some questions you might answer:
* Can you relate to the way this writer decides if something is done?
* Did you understand/agree with the changes made in the author’s piece?
* If this were your piece, would you continue with it? Why or why not?
* If you critique the writing itself, please critique only the second version posted.
* If the author answered the final question, do you agree with his or her assessment?
Word limit: 300 for the author's answer piece, 1000 each for the free-write revisions
Please use the subject line
SUB: Exercise #349/yourname
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