Face the facts: most writing is revision

Iowa was never heaven, and pulled away from that comparison even more in the last decade, but the Field of Dreams baseball game last night was a reminder of the power of myth and of longing for something better, something (at least superficially) pure and good.

Myths can help energize and support society moving forward and myths can slow down progress as people pine for something that never really was.

I wrote a few days ago about how pop culture references can lose their power as the audience for the references loses shared memories of the TV show or movie line or song title (or comedy bit). My favorite blogger, Seth Godin, wrote about this today and added the power of a memorable metaphor as he discussed the "half life" of such references.

Man, I wish I had thought of that term for what I was thinking about. I'm not certain as to how Mr. Godin came up with that take on the "half life of pop culture" phenomenon -- he might have picked it up from another source or he may have just had that apt phrase pop into his head -- but it was a great reminder that there is power in finding "just the right" word or phrase instead of getting close, but not quite there.

Writers who wish to rise above the norm must accept the need to rewrite and rethink until all the words are "just right." 

As most professional writers counsel: write fast and edit slow. Don't worry too much about that hurried first draft -- don't go back and spell "studnet" correctly if you are on a roll -- and accept the need to write a second draft (or many more). NOTE: "studnet" is my personal most common typo. I don't know why and I notice it immediately when typing. The good news is that I realize I make this typo consistently. The typos that kill us are when we don't even know we made a typo in the first place.

I don't want to get into sexual politics in this morning's post, but my latest encounter with "write fast and edit slow" involves a readers theater script I am developing for a local performing group, which is the basic 1974 movie script for "Young Frankenstein" plus a few lines from the original Gene Wilder play and from the later musical version of the show.

It's not writing a script. It's editing and splicing and spending considerable time thinking about whether the audience will be able to follow along without the sight gags of the movie.

My latest challenge is to rewrite what might be called "the rape turns to romance" scene, where Madelyn Kahn's character is conquered by a large penis, initially against her will. Her performance is a comedic classic, and comedy certainly can make some of us uncomfortable and must also be contextualized within its time and place.

But a rape scene played for laughs -- and let's stipulate that YF is not Shakespeare -- is not OK. It never really was.

So, in the next week my task will be to reimagine that scene, and depart from the original is a clear way while maintaining some laughs and some character development. I don't know where to go with the implied sex -- and there are many typical "consensual" sex jokes in the film -- but the uncomfortable feelings I had about the offending scene have been gnawing at me for a couple months.

I'm so glad I had a timeline for this project that allowed for some "think time."

My "first draft," as it were, was me downloading a PDF of the film script (everything is online). I shrugged off copyright law since the performance will involve no ticket sales and the (forgive me) Frankenstein monster of a script will not be published and I will receive no money for my efforts.

My second draft was mostly formatting and cleaning up typos. My third was to fold in some lines from my two other main source documents. My fourth was to add narration needed to help the readers theater audience know we had changed scenes or that something had happened off stage.

The fifth major draft will add a few more ideas derived from the musical version, plus some heavy rewrites of the rape scene.

The point of my quick review of this project: each draft involved more focus and took more time. Each draft also made the script better, for the audience and for the performers.

The final script is not due until Sept. 29, in time for auditions. Any bets on whether there will be a sixth draft? And any bets on some final changes following our first table read?

Save your money. More drafts are coming.