Creative editing: how to revise your manuscript  

Aims

This course aims to:

•      explore techniques which working writers use to edit their fiction
   
•      learn what to attend to as you develop and revise your own writing
   
•      practice editing your own text

Content

This course will focus on editing as a creative act. Sessions, readings, and exercises will be geared towards investigating how writers can effectively revise and what elements of a narrative they should pay attention to as they edit and develop it. This course will be taught on the assumption that students have already written fiction prior to beginning the sessions and students will be encouraged to consider the ways in which a piece of their existing creative prose—whether that be a novel, short story, or linked story collection—may be altered and improved. In considering how a piece of fiction may be revised, students will explore the constituent elements of narrative, including scene, imagery, exposition, and perspective. Students will practice editing their own texts in class. 

Presentation of the course 

The course will be taught over ten in-person sessions. There will be required reading (included in the course reader) to be completed prior to sessions. The content of sessions will be a mix of tutor presentation, seminar-style discussion, and in-class writing exercises.

Course sessions

1. Introductions 
   This session will be about where you are on your writing journey. You'll get a chance to speak about your writing projects and the opportunity to hear about the projects of your classmates. By way of kicking the session off, we'll read and discuss the story 'Creative Writing' by Etgar Keret. We will discuss and plan out workshop sessions for the week. 
    
2. The Second Draft
   This session will focus on the act of writing a second draft. We'll discuss two essays about the drafting process by Zadie Smith and Matt Bell. 
    
3. Cutting Down 
   This session will focus on one of the key aspects of the revision process: cutting. We'll investigate the precise steps that one can take to effectively revise a piece of fiction. Prior to this class, I'd like you to read two excerpts from books by George Saunders and Lydia Davis. I'd also like you to bring some of your own writing to class—one to two-thousand words of a work in progress.
    
4. Workshop 1
   This will be our first workshop session. Pieces for this workshop should be shared to the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by 6.15pm the previous day. Please aim to have read all of the submissions for this workshop prior to the start of the session. 
    
5. Endings
   In this session, we're going to put into practice some of the ideas that we've been discussing. I'd like you to read the first three quarters of a story by Leonard Michaels. In class we're going to discuss this story (or at least its start and middle!) and then we're going to sketch out what we think the ending of the story will be. Please don't look up the final section of the story before class—the exercise is much more effective if you're imagining the ending of the story in ignorance of what the ending actually is.
    
6. Workshop 2
   This will be our second workshop session. Pieces for this workshop should be shared to the Virtual Learning Environment by 6.15pm the previous day. Please aim to have read all of the submissions for this workshop prior to the start of the session.
    
7. Fictional Intangibles 
   A key aspect of knowing how to revise is knowing what should be in a piece of fiction. At this point in the week, we'll have spoken quite a bit about the big stuff – plot and structure. However, the finer-grained qualities of fiction often get less attention. This session will be an attempt to study some of those smaller details. In preparation I'd like you to read an essay by Charles Baxter and then a short story by Stephanie Vaughn.
    
8. Workshop 3
   This will be our third workshop session. Pieces for this workshop should be shared to the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by 6.15pm the previous day. Please aim to have read all of the submissions for this workshop prior to the start of the session.
    
9. Scenes
   In this session, we will think about scenes, the building blocks of larger works of fiction. In advance of our discussion on the subject, I'd like you to read two essays by Jeff Vandermeer and Anna Keesey. For an in-class exercise, I'd like you to bring to this session a scene from your work in progress which you're not quite happy with. 
    
10. Workshop 4
    This will be our fourth workshop session. Pieces for this workshop should be shared to the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by 6.15pm the previous day. Please aim to have read all of the submissions for this workshop prior to the start of the session.

Learning outcomes

You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course. 

As a result of the course, within the constraints of the time available, you should be able to:

• understand the approaches by which professional writers of fiction edit their work
   
• envision how your own writing projects may be revised and improved
   
• use technical terms related to fiction craft and revision 
   
• understand how published fiction may inspire the refinement of their own writing 

Required reading

All required reading is included in the course reader which you can find on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Please bring a copy of the reader (physical or digital) to every session. 

Typical week: Monday to Friday 

Courses run from Monday to Friday. For each week of study, you select a morning (Am) course and an afternoon (Pm) course. The maximum class size is 25 students.   

Courses are complemented by a series of daily plenary lectures, exploring new ideas in a wide range of disciplines. To add to your learning experience, we are also planning additional evening talks and events. 

Evaluation and Academic Credit  

If you are seeking to enhance your own study experience, or earn academic credit from your Cambridge Summer Programme studies at your home institution, you can submit written work for assessment for one or more of your courses.  

Essay questions are set and assessed against the University of Cambridge standard by your Course Director, a list of essay questions can be found in the Course Materials. Essays are submitted two weeks after the end of each course, so those studying for multiple weeks need to plan their time accordingly. There is an evaluation fee of £75 per essay. 

For more information about writing essays see Evaluation and Academic Credit. 

Certificate of attendance 

A certificate of attendance will be sent to you electronically after the programme.