Revision 2

Yesterday I made passing reference to clarifying the big picture on my first day of revision.  On my second day I am overwhelmed with the enormous picture.  In fact it’s probably the most challenging – and often most elusive – element of the writing and rewriting process.  I’m talking about THEME. 

As I sat down to read through the third segment of the Light-Chasers (the book within the book) I knew there would be some hard decisions to make.  Saif, a spiritual guru and philanthropist, is the character whose voice tells the story.  He regrets not being more supportive to his cousin, Zara, ten years younger than him, when her mother abandoned her in his home when she was just ten.  He recalls how his mother worshipped Zara and how the girl makes and loses friends over the years before going away to England at eighteen to read Law.

The new narrative structure needs to be inserted into what is almost a meditation and it needs to propel the action forward . The new storyline is about Saif’s current passion-project, which is to set up an Academy for Girls in the very traditional area where he has his ‘family seat’ (he’s from an old and influential family).  The communal strife from the areas around is spreading to this area and tensions are running high.  The former Maharaja, now a politician, is Saif’s disciple and his business partner, which means the project has a benefactor from each factions (Hindu and Muslim) but that has not stopped allegations of the school having a religio-political agenda.  

My tasks were to work out:

1. How much of the existing text is of intrinsic value and can be kept. (I love this segment – but kept reminding myself of that injunction to writers to ‘murder your darlings’.  (I think it’s from Arthur Queller Couch)


2. How and where to insert the new storyline – one idea was to frame the existing test at beginning and end and slip it into any natural interstices I could find – because it has a natural unity which might be disrupted if handled roughly.


3. Where in the main book the piece can be best inserted so that it works as an integral part of the whole book.

I read the piece – around eight pages – and felt very reluctant to cut any of it.  I wondered if it was because I’d already been at it with the blue marker some months ago.  But no – what was niggling me was my reluctance.  I LOVE cutting - but I was convinced that the material was intrinsic to the book, I just didn’t know yet why.

Showering always helps so off I went for my second shower of the day.

My first thought was that though the piece was about warmth and love, friendship, achievement and sharing of relatives it was also about loss.  Primarily, it seemed to contain something I can’t quite articulate yet about what women lose (especially in traditional societies but also in traditional relationships the world over) in an unremarked, unacknowledged way but also how people lose women – through marriage, through motherhood, through careers or Narcissism, even.  It’s something quite elusive and one of my tasks is going to be to experiment with formulating it without becoming sentimental or clunky – both would be hideous.

Sometimes tenuous observations can be formulated in a peripheral sentence – other times you create whole sequences or scenarios for them and then cut them back to brief observations.  Of course, it’s all part of the process.

On the question of the new structure, I saw that the loss theme was a comfortable fit – Saif and his friend Jay face a chance of terrible loss if they are stopped from setting up the Girls’ Academy – money, reputation – but most importantly for Saif, a dream and a passion and the promise he made his grandmother who bequeathed him the land for the project.

Now – how to put it all together?  Maybe the drive of the piece needs to come from Saif’s inner struggle.   Should he join the media debate and battle it out publicly.  His friend Jay and his niece Zara believe so.  Jay is a politician, Saif is a philanthropist and a spiritual guru.  He is horrified by the thought of his innermost dreams being made public and contaminated by misinterpretation and misuse.  Zara also feels he should counter-sue the man who is claiming the land endowed by Saif’s grandmother.  Again, the thought of bringing his grandmother into the public arena is anathema.  So what should he do?  Just let go of his dream? 

That’s where the existing piece fits in.  Saif considers the women in his life across three generations. He knows their achievements, their struggles, their losses – but he is also aware of lost potential.  That was what his grandmother longed to resolve by creating an academy for girls which would encourage them to see that they should follow their passion whether it is to labour on the roads like their fathers or to aim for the highest position in the country. 

When he touches base with his grandmother’s vision, he also reconnects with his own convictions – that he must remain fixed on his purpose and to do so in a way that feels true to himself.  So he chooses to fight the fight hard and long – but do it in privately so that his passion, his conviction and even his character and words are not bandied about indiscriminately and the meaning of his work is not degraded.

Now I’ve got to see if this will work.

And if it does, I’ll have to find out what that private strategy will be.

But then these are the surprises of writing – even at the very final stages – and oh, the agony and the ecstasy of it all.

May the Muse be with you!