South Flatland Fiction

If a finished essay were an intricate sculpture of a man, the first draft would be the rough form of a person, with a smooth ball for a head and a body with appendages lacking fingers and toes. It does not yet look like a man, but it is a necessary step to get the artist to the final stage of revising. Just as sculptors create a rough form before they remove clay from some spots, add it to others, and refine every detail, writers should create a rough draft before they move or remove sentences, phrases, and paragraphs and refine their work.

A sculptor probably would not think of spending an hour perfecting a nose before she creates the face on which it will be placed, nor would she fire a piece before carefully checking over every aspect—a writer should not either. However, that is exactly what I did when I constantly interrupted the flow of writing my first drafts to reword and reorganize my essays and then failed to proofread them thoroughly and objectively.

Throughout the course of English Composition, I have changed from a sculptor that perfected that faceless nose, then fired my piece with three missing toes, to one with a more refined (and anatomically correct) piece. I learned to complete my first draft before I begin revising, detach from my work, and proofread intensively.

Ten years ago, when I wrote essays in high school, I continuously revised my work as I wrote. By the time I finished writing what was supposed to be my first draft, I had revised the paper so much that I was ready to recopy it and turn it in. My medium was primarily pen and paper. When I did occasionally use a computer, it was only to create a typed replica of exactly what I had on paper.

I decided to rethink my methods after the very first reading assignment of my English Composition class. The article, in Prentice Hall Reference Guide by Muriel Harris, detailed the process of using the computer as a tool for drafting and revising writing. Paired with the fact that I am much more comfortable with the computer than I was ten years ago, I decided to try it. However, when I wanted to revise my work as I went along, I ran into a problem. I did not like the idea of completely deleting things that I might eventually like better or want to use later in the paper.

A tip I found in the reading was to keep a notes file open to paste information to and make comments about possible changes. This worked perfectly. It helped me to stop interrupting the flow of my writing, yet I did not have to worry about forgetting a change that I wanted to make. I found that when I just focused on writing my draft and did not spend so much time rewriting it, the words came more easily and my writing became more developed.

The next change came into play when I began revising my first draft. As I read page after page, I had a problem taking out or rewriting words and phrases that did not seem quite right, but that I was fond of. For example, when I wrote a Classification and Division essay about intentionally having a unique appearance in my younger days, I originally started the paper with the line, “Some people are born different.” By the time I finished the draft, the line just did not fit in with the direction the paper had taken. I spent an hour trying to rework my introduction around that line. I finally realized that, while the introduction did need revising, the sentence just did not belong. It was a breakthrough for me because it was at that point I accepted that some elements, no matter how much I like them, just do not jell with the rest of an essay and must be omitted for the sake of the paper. It has helped me improve my work because I now revise more objectively, and, in turn, I am more concise in my wording.

My final change began to come about after reviewing my first graded essay, and it is something I am still working on. I changed the way I proofread, the all-important step that must take place after the first draft and revisions have been pounded out. I have always been aware of the importance of proper grammar, and I thought I had a good grasp of it. Previously, when I read a finished essay, I was mainly looking for missing words, and, as far as everything else was concerned, if it looked right to me, it was fine.

However, through reading the comments on my graded essays and using the Prentice Hall Reference Guide, I discovered that there is much more involved in good proofreading. I was spurred to try harder by essay comments like, “This sentence has some problems.” I have found that there is so much to know about a properly written paper that I must read the essay forwards, backwards, and aloud, carefully analyzing each sentence for everything from pronoun-antecedent agreement to dangling modifiers. Inevitably, I still miss things, but I think the important issue is that I am more aware of the rules of writing, and I can continue to practice and get better.

English Composition has been a valuable experience. I have learned that the first and final drafts of an essay are equally important, and they should both be given their due time. As far as proofreading is concerned, I have a better understanding that it is not just what you say, but how you say it—it is true in life and it is true in writing. It can be frustrating to spend an entire evening proofreading a paper and then find that I made mistakes that I was not even looking for. It reminds me that writing is one of those things that I can always improve, no matter how much experience I have. Today, my pieces may not be comparable to Michelangelo’s David, but I have gained knowledge to help make them more beautiful with every attempt.

Erica Vaughn lives in Kansas with her best friend and their two cats, Jay and Knella. She currently attends Butler County Community College, majoring in Nursing. She enjoy cooking, gardening, and reading anything she can get her hands on. A few of her favorite authors are Anne Rice, Amy Tan, and Jonathan Kellerman.