A Kernel on General Contracting Your Stories
by making a “punch list”
Not long ago, I workshopped two separate short stories in two different workshops a mere two days apart. It was wild and wonderful and all a bit too much. I left those workshops with a ton of ideas for revision both large and small, as well as my professor’s perennial advice to “take what you can use and leave the rest.”
I was so fired up with ideas and desire to revise both of my stories, but I knew it would be logistically impossible to revise them both simultaneously. I needed some way to hold on to the urgency and clarity I felt about the suggestions I’d received, while putting the project out of mind for an indeterminate amount of time.
On the fly, I developed a system based on a contractor’s “punch list.” If you’ve ever worked with a professional on any sort of renovation, you’ll be familiar with this all-important document. Basically, it’s an itemized list of all the tasks both large and small that you and the contractor agree will be part of the job: new sinks and cabinets, vanity lighting, hexagonal tile on the floors, and paint on the walls. It serves as the operating instructions for the crew as well as a fungible contract, meaning that tasks can be dropped, swapped, or added as the job goes on and conditions change, so long as it’s done within budget. When the contractor is finally able to begin a project, the crew starts to “punch out” each task, one by one.
My writer’s punch list works similarly. After workshop, I immediately read everyone’s letters and then go through all of the line notes, but while I read, I now draft a document that includes my intentions for revision and all of the big global suggestions that resonated with me.
For one story I workshopped, which was titled “Last Look,” I came up with seventeen items I wanted to change based on feedback. It began like this:
Create a new title, possibly “Notes on a Profile of the Artist Laura Brooks.” This would help explain the hermit crab form I’m employing.
Cut word count to 6,000 (max) so it fits submissions and application requirements.
Add more characterization to Julian on pages 4–5. He feels too obscure. Clarify his attraction to the Amish (isolation, no cameras). Indicate on pages 6–8 how his sisters feel about his death: Violet thinks it was an unavoidable tragedy; Stella blames their mother.
Add more characterization and motivation to the narrator. How is she contributing to the tension? What does she want from Brooks? Why was Brooks willing to be interviewed by her?—and about ten more questions my readers felt I needed to answer about my narrator.
As you can see, I employed active verbs and specific details so that my intentions to myself were clear. I didn’t just note that Julian needed more “characterization.” I noted that I could add specific details about his motivations on pages 4–5. When I couldn’t be this specific—for instance, with the next bulleted item about the narrator—I collated the questions my readers had raised.
Then, just like a contractor, I ranked the suggestions in order of greatest importance to least. A contractor wants to make sure the client has their greatest needs met, knowing that some of the smaller items will get scratched from the list as the project goes over time and over budget. A client may be a little disappointed if they wind up having to paint the walls themselves, but they sure as heck want those new sinks and floors. The same is true for story revisions: it’s important not to get bogged down in negligible changes and miss critical issues raised by your readers.
Finally, just like a contractor, I waited. And waited and waited and waited, until there was space in my workflow to begin a new job. I am a poor planner and overly optimistic, so I always imagine that I will begin revisions within a week after receiving feedback on a story, but more often weeks or even months will pass before I can look at the story again.
For this particular story five months passed before I was able to return to my draft. But because I had my punch list, that delay wasn’t a huge problem. My tasks were already itemized, ranked, and full of specific instructions, so that when I was able to begin revisions, I knew exactly what to do. And rather than the delay becoming a liability, it actually gave me the distance I needed to know which suggestions still resonated with me. I was truly able, like my professor always says, to take what I could use and leave the rest.
My kernel of advice: Immediately incorporate workshop feedback into a to-do list and then let that advice rest while you gain clarity for your revision goals.
What’s your strategy for incorporating feedback from a workshop? If you’ve worked with a professional agent or editor, how do they organize their feedback to you? Drop us a note in the comments.
Inspiration, Information, & Insight
Sarah is currently in the middle of reading both The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen and The Emissary by Yoko Tawada. Bowen’s classic 1935 book is all psychological atmosphere about a love triangle and its resulting love child and is told in three parts that toggle a decade in time. Tawada’s 2014 novel is a stream-of-consciousness exploration of a centenarian and his great-grandson living in an isolationist Japan after it has been hit by a Fukushima-like disaster. Although the two books could not be more different in subject and style, Sarah is reading them both to solve problems in her three-part speculative climate novel.
For the first time in Shelby’s four years of hosting a monthly book club, she is most likely not finishing the book. Don’t get her wrong! The writing is spectacular and she so wished she could continue…but 25 pages into the spooky read she chose for October and the body horror and supernatural elements were already out in full force. The irony isn’t lost on her that she chose the book. Still, she’s looking forward to hearing what her book club members have to say about this horrifying read!
Neidy is chipping away at her novel manuscript. She intends to let her fellow Kernelists read it before the year is through!
Natalia is out of office.