One of my quirks as a writer is that I can’t remember what I write. My projects only occupy my mind in the moments I’m writing. This means, when I come back to a project to edit and rewrite, it has the same feeling I get when I go back to a place I used to live. Things are familiar. I can recall the intention I had writing certain parts, but they’re also different. What I thought I clearly explained, was never detailed. But every draft is a chance to rewrite better.
That’s how I’ve approached Death and the Salesman. It has good bones. It’s good clay. I can work with it, but in its current state, it’s terrible. The dialogue is clunky. Blazchkey’s motive and character are inconsistent. And it needs a new ending. But even under that, I can sense the strength of the plot. The desperate con man finds a miracle cure. What will he do? What would you do? I certainly want to find out. And a piece of writing advice I’ve always loved is, write what you would read. I don’t remember who said it.

Analyzing Death and the Salesman, here are a few examples and what’s going on in my mind as I’m rewriting them.

I changed this because I wanted to let the reader more into Blazchkey’s head. This is a face-questioning moment, Vanessa is challenging Blazchkey’s character. By showing more of Blazchkey’s internal side, I can control how the reader feels reading this. I don’t want Blazchkey to come off as competent. Not in lying, not in pharmacy, nothing.

His ineptitude is a reason to side with him. He’s an idiot doing the right thing. If he feels, as I thought he did in the first draft, too capable, too calculated, it both disorients in regard to his later moments, and alienates the reader. Reading about an evil mastermind can be cool.[SPOILERS] Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz does so beautifully. But that’s not the story I want to tell.

Another part of rewriting I love is looking at theme. This can feel like one of those vague things writers say when they’re talking about writing. In my mind, theme is the repetition of an idea, from multi0le angles. In Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead a major theme is drug abuse. In Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles a theme is destiny. A theme I noticed, that I had unintentionally focused on in Death and the Salesman was race.

I didn’t start writing Death and the Salesman with the intention of making it a story about race.However, when approaching any kind of American Historical Fiction, it is inevitable that the subjectarises. The subjugation, apartheid, and subsequent division between races is a major part of the American Social Fabric.

The question then becomes. Do I have the skill to accurately comment on the topic, and represent it with the respect it deserves. I’m uncertain. On one hand, I don’t want to add to the erasure of minority experiences throughout American history. On the other, I worry I will not go far enough. It is a subject indivisible from the American experience, and simultaneously, I feel it can become a dominant force in a story.

I think I’m happy with where it is right now. If I come across any research or any opportunities present themselves while writing though, I would not be against pursuing it. As it is now, race is broached, acknowledged, but not resolved. Thank you for reading so far, I’m working on adding commenting. In the meantime, if you have any comments, feel free to email me at jzyliang.irregularlyregular@gmail.com