ENGL7516 Chap.9 Revision, Rewriting and Close Reading
Revision, Rewriting and Close Reading
The chapter that feeds the largest marks
The final creative draft may revise the mid-term piece if it shows significant changes, addresses the evaluating instructor's specific critiques and demonstrates strong evidence of revision, and the craft analysis then asks how the work evolved.
The tenth topic provides three resources for that work: a story with its first draft and an editor's notes, a long story to annotate, and handbook chapters on self-criticism and rewriting.
What the handbook advises
The handbook chapters ask the writer to stand far enough back to read as a critic rather than an author, and to put a story away long enough to forget it.
The first errors to look for are imbalances, where too little or too much was written; the handbook notes that in novice work the beginning tends to take too long and the big scene is passed over too quickly.
It also warns about sequence errors and about cuts that show, and quotes a novelist's view that a great novel is made with a knife rather than a pen.
A draft and its published version
The course includes a story by Dominic Sargent in its first draft with an editor's end notes, and the story as later published under a new title.
The notes praise the beginning, the ending and the protagonist, diagnose a story hidden in exposition and explanatory dialogue, reduce the plot to one paragraph, and ask for every other passage to justify itself. The published version cuts several passages, turns a told relationship into scenes, gives an unseen partner a visible parallel, and ends by showing rather than naming.
It is longer than the draft, because summary became scene.
Close reading with a pen
The week's task asks for an annotated copy of David Foster Wallace's The Depressed Person with a close reading of some aspect of it. At minimum, students note how the story makes them feel at various points and investigate what on the page contributed.
The instructions suggest tracing a concept or structural features, such as paragraph breaks, sentence and clause length and parentheticals, back through the story, and restate that the question is effect rather than symbolism.
Turning notes into a log
Keep a revision log that pairs each piece of feedback with the change it prompted and the effect you intended. That log becomes the spine of the craft analysis.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Revision conditions for the final creative draft
- 02
Distance and deliberate forgetting
- 03
Balance of parts and the rushed big scene
- 04
Sequence errors and invisible cuts
- 05
The plot paragraph as a test for every passage
- 06
Answering the problem a note identifies
- 07
Why revision can make a story longer
- 08
Annotating for feeling and for structure
Worked example · free
Convert editor's notes into a revision log
- 2Log the change made in response to the slow opening.
- 2Log the change made to the summarised argument.
- 2Log the change made to the explaining ending.
Key terms
- Revision Log
- A running record that pairs each piece of feedback with the change it prompted and the effect the writer intended, used later as evidence in a craft analysis.
- Plot Paragraph
- A summary of a story's essential events in a few sentences, used during revision as a test that every passage must serve.
- Exposition
- Information supplied to the reader about background, situation or character, which in excess buries the story and slows its movement.
- Close Reading
- Detailed attention to the words, sentences and structures of a text, in this course aimed at explaining how the text produces its effects on a reader.
- Critical Distance
- The ability to read one's own work as a reader or critic would, usually gained by setting a draft aside before revising it.
- Annotation
- Notes written on a text beside specific words or passages, recording a reader's responses and the devices that caused them.
Revision, Rewriting and Close Reading FAQ
Can my final creative draft be a revised version of my mid-term draft?
Yes. The outline allows it, provided the final version shows significant changes from the first draft, addresses the specific critiques given by the evaluating instructor and demonstrates strong evidence of revision. Minor polishing of the same text would not meet those conditions, so plan substantial structural work.
What should my annotations on the close-reading text look like?
The instructions ask you at minimum to record how the story affects you at different moments and to investigate what on the page produced that feeling. They suggest following either a concept or structural features back through the text, and say your pages should resemble the lecturer's own annotations on earlier readings.
Why did the revised story get longer rather than shorter?
Because the editor's central note asked for told material to be shown in scenes of action, and scenes take more room than summary. Several passages were cut, but the dramatised replacements outweighed them. Revision is often about converting summary to scene, not only about deleting.
Do I have to follow every note an instructor gives me?
The outline requires the final draft to address the specific critiques provided, so each note needs a response. Addressing a note can mean solving the problem it identifies in your own way rather than applying its wording literally, and explaining that choice is valuable material for the craft analysis.
Assessment move
Read the draft and published versions of the week's story side by side for one scene, marking every change and matching it to a note where you can. Then write your own draft's plot as one paragraph and test each scene against it. Begin your revision log the same day, even if the first entries are only intentions.
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