Fiction Revision Boot Camp

“Revision is a fundamental part of the writing process,” says instructor Michael David Lukas. “It’s the sweat and glue and spit and polish that turns your first draft into a finished product. Revision is finding just the right word, it's writing a new ending again and again and again, it's restructuring the narrative, it's making that character rounder, it's taking out that comma, and putting it back in again. Revision is the 99% perspiration of writing. And yet, important as it is, revision is often overlooked in writing workshops. It's an afterthought, a means to an end.”

In this course, we're going to give revision its fair due. In writing exercises, guided readings, discussions, and mini-workshops, we will explore revision from the sentence-level to the work as a whole. Students will come away from the course with a newfound appreciation for revision and valuable strategies to help make the process easier.