Lecture 22: Revision without Tears
z In the second-draft version, the bare, unevocative summary of the
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actual scene between Nelson and the chair of the English department,
Victoria Victorinix: >1HOVRQ@KDGMXVWFRPHIURPWKHVSDUWDQVHYHQWKÀRRURI¿FH
of Victoria Victorinix, the undergraduate chair of the English
department, where Nelson was a visiting adjunct lecturer.
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had told Nelson politely but coolly that the department
was being forced by budget necessities to terminate his
appointment at the end of the semester. Professor Victorinix
was a small, slender, steely woman, with cropped, silvery hair,
a penetrating gaze, and the trace of a bemused smile always
about her mouth. Nelson appreciated her forthrightness, and
the fact that she looked at him as she sacked him; indeed,
it was Nelson’s glance that roamed all over the white walls
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and tried not to cry. The emotion would have been an honest
response on Nelson’s part, but tears wouldn’t have changed
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of a being ignored, condescended to, and worse as a gay
woman in academia, and she was unusually immune to the
self-pity of wounded young men.“You have our gratitude, of course,” she said, “for all your
efforts on behalf of the department. Though I realize that under
the circumstances, that may not mean much to you.”z The second version is better because it is dramatic and because it starts
to show rather than tell. This opening puts the reader in the middle of a
situation, providing just enough information to make it intriguing and to
suggest what’s coming without giving everything away. Not only does the
new version work better on the macro level of the whole narrative, but it
also works better on the micro level of sentences and evocative details.