[Read the completed challenge here!]
I wrote 1,231 words several weeks ago and then got side-trekked by other writing projects/life. Yesterday morning I sat down to finish the story and realized there was nothing more to add. There was, however, much to subtract.
You see, after using the same approach I used for Week Ten (printing out the story, using scissors to cut between each paragraph, and then rearranging the bits until a narrative started to emerge), I realized that what I had written was one complete story and half of a different one.
And by the way, I really can't recommend enough this literal cut-and-paste approach to revision. It can snap you out of the sense of inevitability your draft has after the fifth time you've read it. It allowed me to see that I could bookend the piece with my dreams about falling and flying. (In my original draft, these several paragraphs are two paragraphs randomly in the middle of the piece.) It allowed me to compare and contrast my parents' views about life after death, and use that to create a narrative about my own journey to what I currently believe.
Also, Scientology.
All of those pieces were in the rough draft, but that's not the story it told. I don't know if I would have found the story I did without paper and scissors.
So that's how! And I'm also excited to finish the other story that came out of this. I think it has the potential to be one of my better yarns.
Next up, an announcement! And then, Week Sixteen!