Editing -- the roles of Presence and Absence

and the value of the "find" option

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

An interesting image for the idea of “presence” and “absence.” What is here? What is “missing”? How do we know what’s missing? What does the “missing” bring to a story? Can the story exist without? Is it enriched without? What can it not exist without?

Add your own answers and questions and possibilities… This could even be a prompt, if you want! Write about the missing or focus on a piece that is here.

In the early aughts, I went to Antioch Uni in LA to study within their writing pedagogy program. We spent a morning discussing Frederick Olmstead’s ideas of “presence” and “absence” in design. I have to admit that I don’t remember much about the talk, except as it applied to writing—which was the goal.

The two words presence/absence push at me to think about the white space in poetry, the unsaid in fiction and memoir, and the unwritten in picturebook creating (as well as what grows between the images and text).

And it always comes to mind when I’m going deeply into the editing process.