Hemingway: “The only good writing is rewriting.”
Harry Shaw, in Errors in English and Ways to Correct Them, says, “There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting.”
My favorite book on writing is Donald M. Murray‘s The Craft of Revision. The assumption from the title is that it’s not about the craft of writing but revision.
In this four- to six-hour, writing intensive workshop, you will practice writing and revision skills to enhance your storytelling and make composing a narrative more enjoyable. You’ll see a real difference!
You will write a two-to-five-page scene before class, then use it to apply each of these techniques. You will see a before-and-after difference in your story, and as a result learn to revel in revision.
- Recognize five kinds of storytelling to decide which is yours
- Find unnecessary words for efficient writing
- Use illuminating nouns for powerful writing
- Utilize vigorous verbs for energetic writing
- Make significant and precise word choices for effective writing
- Deploy active rather than passive voice for forward-movement writing
- Identify nominalizations and rewrite to revitalize a passage
- Generate effective and varied sentence structures
- Replace abstract words with description, scenery, and dialogue.
- Write with all five (or six) senses
Finding Ourselves at Home in the World 