20 Versions: One Way to Train in Impermanence

 

Picture of Don Murray

Legendary writing professor Don Murray once proposed that we think of 1,000 rewrites for a piece of our writing.  Instead of 1,000, come up with 20 versions of a text you’re writing, thinking of changes in style, content, and even genre. * SD indicates a revision that keeps the piece the same type of document or genre.

 

Here's how it looked when I tried out this exercise:

 

Original document:

1. Scholarly article on history of figurative language and creative writing

 

Its Transformations:

 

1.  article for trade journal (professional writers) on same topic

2. an interview (of contemporary creative writers) on topic for a trade journal
3. incorporate an interview section (of creative writers) in the scholarly article SD
4. humorous piece on how academia limits creativity of faculty
5. poem that has the simile as its topic (figurative language)
6. a talk at a conference for creative writers
7. a talk at a conference for historians of rhetoric
8. add a personal or autobiographical section  SD
9. blog posting (for educators or for poets)
10. statement on professional web page
11. incorporate into a teaching philosophy statement document
12. incorporate actual 19^th century student creative writings as examples SD
13. incorporate lectures on figuration from 19^th century Harvard professors SD
14. turn into full-length scholarly book
15. turn into a cartoon or illustration for something
16. turn into a PowerPoint for faculty
17. article about poetic license as it occurs today
18. same article as #17 for Humanities faculty only
19. personal essay that starts with a simile and metaphor about this topic in my writing and teaching life
20. a freewrite on same topic

This method promotes impermanence by keeping the genre of one's writing open. You don't have rigid preconceptions about genre, for one thing. In turn, by allowing the genre to even stay in-flux, you are making good use of the absence of audience during the writing moment (because genre is connected to particular audience expectations). You're taking control of the audience-in-the-head. For me, this method resulted in a poem (included at end of my second book, Lid to the Shadow, as well as a scholarly article in College Composition and Communication.)