Thoughts on the two versions

It's interesting how having an assignment influences writing, sometimes for the worse. The first version of Drill was written with nothing much more in mind than telling the story and illustrating the point in the frame, that simulation isn't a complete substitute for real experience. There's enough detail, I think, for readers to understand the point of the drill.

The assignment that got me re-writing was this (as best I can recover it from my notes):

Assignment. Something you know a lot about and write to show others. Scene, dialogue, feelings, narrative.

That's approximate, but close. But that and reading the original piece to a friend got me thinking that I needed more of an explanation of the steering system and led to all the detail in the second version.

Along the way, I looked at the alternate writing assignment:

What do you feel strongly about? What experiences lead you to that. Be specific.

I realized that I could be doing both assignments, although "strongly" may be an exaggeration. I'd already decided to drop the frame and I was trying to find a quotation to start. I didn't find the one I was looking for but I did find the one from Confucius that seemed on the money. In
fact, it made the old title work even better.

But, when all is said and done, I think the new version is inferior to the old version: too much explanation, really -- enough to stall the narrative. And it wouldn't have been there without the assignment.

That's often the problem with workshops and classes: they produce work that fills an assignment but that are not worth being published.