Revision Tips for Non-Fiction
Some general advice about your creative essays.
A point about revision:
Revision means to RE-SEE (to re-vise...) your work. Sometimes we can only do this after time has elapsed. If a piece in your portfolio is giving you trouble, put it aside for a marking period and come back to it later. In order to revise, consider changing your focus, shift beginnings with endings, create flashbacks. Revise character, plot, setting, style, genre. Most often your work needs more detail and specific language as your first draft usually is just about trying to get what's in your head down on paper. A second go-around should open the topic up considerably, but it could also cut away the dead stuff. Remove anything redundant, unimportant, or uninteresting that does not MOVE your story forward. This is not always easy to do.
Finally, keep all your drafts. Put a draft # in your heading. This will help you keep track of how you change your work over time.
- Creative non-fiction should be interesting. It is often called expository writing in that it exposes an idea or position about its subject matter. This requires subjectivity on the part of the author. In other words it should reveal the author's attitude toward its subject. It exposes an aspect of our culture, history, background, or the author's personality that reminds us about our humanity.
- It should be written with as much exactness and literary skill as fiction. When you tell a narrative story (even if it's true) the details and careful attention to characterization, setting, and plot are essential. Don't forget to use the writing skills you use when writing fiction and poetry. It's all the same.
- A big difference between fiction and non-fiction is that creative non-fiction is reflective. By the end of the essay or article the author reflects on the subject and tries to answer how the subject makes us who we are, adds to our culture, makes us think about something we do or say or how we behave, or in other terms, the essay tries to answer what makes us human. Without this reflection, a non-fiction piece becomes ineffective or rambling. It's not a tweet. It's all about meaning.
- Research. Yep. You are likely to be writing about things you know nothing about (or little about). If you are writing about something, search the internet for anecdotes or facts, statistics, truths, quotes, etc. Anything to support your position. If you don't know something, you need to look it up. Don't be a lazy writer!
- Avoid uncertainties and being wishy-washy. If you don't remember the detail clearly, make it up. Don't use words or phrases that reduce your ethos: I can't remember, maybe it was like this, stuff and things, and we did something, then something else with someone or other...be certain!
- Show rather than tell. Imagery. Detail. Use it.
- This is not an academic essay. You don't need a conclusion that sums up what you've just written about. You DO need to reflect on meaning. See above.
- Titles of major works are italicized. Book titles, feature length film titles, etc. Always.
- Do not use a hyphen - when you mean a dash -- A hyphen (-) is used to join two nouns into one word or to separate syllables. A dash (--) indicates a shift or digression in thought, similar to the use of parenthesis.
- Numbers under 100 are written out unless you are using them to tell time or they are specific dates. Be consistent with how you deal with numbers in all cases. The general rule is that if the number can be written out in two or fewer words, then spell them out completely: ex. ninety-nine. ten. seventy-six. twelve. fourteen. three. 302, etc. I was born on August 1, 1982 is correct. etc.
- Semicolons should be used rarely. A semicolon is used in place of a conjunction when both sides of the sentence are independent clauses. You cannot use a semicolon to connect an independent and dependent clause. You cannot do that; It is not allowed in proper English grammar. Often a period is preferable to a semicolon.
A point about revision:
Revision means to RE-SEE (to re-vise...) your work. Sometimes we can only do this after time has elapsed. If a piece in your portfolio is giving you trouble, put it aside for a marking period and come back to it later. In order to revise, consider changing your focus, shift beginnings with endings, create flashbacks. Revise character, plot, setting, style, genre. Most often your work needs more detail and specific language as your first draft usually is just about trying to get what's in your head down on paper. A second go-around should open the topic up considerably, but it could also cut away the dead stuff. Remove anything redundant, unimportant, or uninteresting that does not MOVE your story forward. This is not always easy to do.
Finally, keep all your drafts. Put a draft # in your heading. This will help you keep track of how you change your work over time.
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