I read the article “The Maker’s Eye” by Donald Murray prior to revising my memoir. It was interesting to read a writer’s view of his take on the revision process. I learned liked his idea of the the 7 elements: subject, audience, form/genre, structure, development, dimension, tone/voice. It fascinated me because I am in a school district where writing is a HUGE focus so the only one I’d never talked about in school is dimension (our was the 6 Traits Program.) With school writing, some of the 7 elements are decided for you by your teacher like audience, structure, genre, so you are focusing many times on only some of those in your writing and rewriting.
I think it’s really hard to revise a piece that you worked hours on and you think it’s really good, but I like how he explains the overall idea of revision. ”Writers of such drafts must be their own best enemy. They must accept the criticism of others and be suspicious of it; they must accept the praise of others and be even more suspicious of it. They cannot depend on others. They must detach themselves from their own page so they can apply both their caring and their craft to their own work.” (Murray)
I was taught early on to read aloud to hear how my work sounds, but I’ve not done the very specific line by line, word by word revising he Murray talks about. “I often read aloud, calling on my ear’s experience with language. Does this sound right-or this? I read and listen and revise, back and forth from eye to page to ear to page.” (Murray) Another item I am trying to use in revising is the idea of sentence variety and balance. I understand it in theory but applying it to a draft us difficult. As I am trying to revise for this, I will always fall back on the read aloud strategy.
Based on the reviews I received, I will try to create a better image of home while also emphasizing it as a “sanctuary.” It’s so obvious to me that this story is about home and its importance to me and important to my growth that I forgot that I need to try to show that part.