Deliberate, systematic revision requires a set of skills that can be acquired like any other, such as driving a car or cooking a cheese omelet. Before we can even begin to think about learning revision skills and putting them into practice; however, we must be willing to really look at our stories and willing to change them. In the case of autobiographical writing, that can be difficult to do, but willingness is what separates an author who is serious about story making as a transcendent art from one who does just enough to get by.
Even the most talented writers with an extraordinary gift for story can't escape revising their work, not if they intend to come up with the best stories they can create. The wisest authors learn to make the process easier by embracing the act of shifting the shape of their stories as a challenge rather than a chore. They often approach this task as they would work a crossword puzzle or play a game – with both concentration and a sense of playfulness.
In order to revise personal essays effectively, we need to be able to:
Writing and revising our own life stories on paper opens a way to self-transformation that permeates our daily lives. Whether the stories we have accumulated are sad or joyful ones, anger filled stories or stories brimming with triumph over adversity and lessons well learned – until we ask the right questions in order to examine them with openness and honesty and change the parts of them that don’t work, they remain unfinished business.
They plead for our attention and try to manipulate us and control us with whining and shouts. When these unexamined stories exert a negative influence on our lives and we refuse to revise them, we blame fate, our upbringing, or even society as a whole when our lives go awry. When we try to build new stories on old foundations that will not support them, we wonder why our magnificent plans crash down around our ears in shambles.
Although the open-mindedness and disposition to change that revision requires are not always easy to come by, they allow us, not only to reclaim our stories, but to reclaim our power to determine their meaning, as well. We can develop a more willing attitude by thinking of revision as a gift – the opportunity of another chance.
Write about a belief you held as a child that you no longer hold, one that seems illogical or silly now. What event or circumstance did this story help you to explain to yourself? What happened to cause you to question that story and change the way you looked at the events that transpired? Notice how the meaning of this belief changed for you over time.
Now write the story of how you came to hold a current belief that you wish you didn’t have. After you’ve finished the rough draft, revise it, asking yourself what this story lacks and what you included that you didn’t need. Make changes to shift, not only the shape of the story but its meaning.