My cousin, Melanie, is a Professor of Early Childhood Education at Columbus State University. In partnership with the Columbus Museum of Art and The Childhood League Center, she created Wonder School, a laboratory preschool that nurtures curiosity and discovery in children ages 3-5. The school also serves as a training ground for future early childhood educators.

As a writer, I love this approach to education. Curiosity and discovery? Yes, please! We’re well-served as writers if we let our curiosities drive us. We should pay attention to the questions that drive us to the page. Once we’re there, we’re engaged in a process of discovery. What brings people to do the things they do? What do their actions reveal about themselves, possibly even things they don’t realize until the pressures of a plot bring them to the surface?

Last night, Melanie told the story of one of her young scholars who became particularly curious about a grated drain in the playground. Melanie found him kneeling at the drain, and she sat down by him and asked him what he was doing.

“Listen,” he said. “Someone’s down there.”

Melanie heard a distant tapping.

The boy put his face close to the drain and said, “Hello.” When that got no response, he got even closer and repeated his greeting. “Hello.”

Finally, his nose to the grate, he shouted, “Hello! What is your business down there?”

I love this story for what it reveals about a writer’s need to know. Isn’t that why we put words on the page—to satisfy a curiosity and to discover something we can’t know until we give it an artistic shape? Like Melanie’s young friend, we get obsessed with finding the answers.

This leads me to some thoughts about revision. After we’ve completed our drafts—after we know the landing place of a story, a novel, an essay, a poem—we need to ask, “What is your business down there?” For instance, are all the characters necessary to the end of the narrative? Is each image in a poem pertinent to the turn at the end? Is each thought in an essay contributing to the final observation or impression. We might also ask if the tone is appropriate or the language fresh and purposeful? How about the setting and the pace? Are the details relevant? Does everything earn its place by making the final move resonate?

Often in revision, we must eliminate, add, and tighten. One simple question can guide us: “What is your business down there?”