Brian Scott Allen
Dark Lord
Quick question for you guys. When you do a massive rewrite how do you go about it? Do you outline, pants it, or do something in between?
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How do you do a rewrite
- Thread starter Brian Scott Allen
- Start date
Manalodia
Mystagogue
If I'm understanding your question right, I go back over my notes and see what I'm missing. Missing information is easy to add in and critiques can fill in gaps you may not think of. If it is nothing more than being poorly written, then highlighting and deletion take place. If I can salvage a line, I will and try to in order to maintain the flow. If I broke it from the beginning, then looking at what I'm trying to say as a whole helps and then go in and rework the details.
Rewriting is time-consuming in itself and often require me to remove myself from being sucked in. It's likely that way for most writers.
Rewriting is time-consuming in itself and often require me to remove myself from being sucked in. It's likely that way for most writers.
Arranah
Journeyman
I write as I go. Each day I reread what I did the day before, all the way through the book creating new scenes as I go. When I get to the end I go through it again, reworking each sentence when I realize how I could say it better. Each word has to earn the right to be there. I do this over and over and over for a couple of years until it's done. That's how I work in general.
Years ago I wrote a book on the murders my brother committed. In addition to the horror this event inflicted on me and my family I was further victimized by what the publisher did to it, making it read untrue in some parts. Finally a couple of years ago I did a complete rewrite. I went back to the original manuscript. I looked over my old notes. I read the newspaper articles about the terror a person I loved inflicted on others. Then I started reworking each section so that it said exactly what I wanted it to say. It's a much better book now than it ever was before. That's my case in point. Hope that helps.
Years ago I wrote a book on the murders my brother committed. In addition to the horror this event inflicted on me and my family I was further victimized by what the publisher did to it, making it read untrue in some parts. Finally a couple of years ago I did a complete rewrite. I went back to the original manuscript. I looked over my old notes. I read the newspaper articles about the terror a person I loved inflicted on others. Then I started reworking each section so that it said exactly what I wanted it to say. It's a much better book now than it ever was before. That's my case in point. Hope that helps.
I'm actually doing this right now. I consorted the outline for the original story in order to see where I had deviated/things had gone wrong for me and I reconstructed a new outline that has a sharper focus. Once I'm done filling it in, I'll start writing from there, keeping some scenes from the original version.
I would say that depends on the reason for the rewrite. If I changed all my characters' names to Venetian names and all my English-like story elements became suddenly much more Italian...I just do a series of Find/ Replaces and then hunt out the elements that need changing, keeping all the rest the same but hacking into select story parts.
If I'm rewriting a whole weak story that doesn't have an antagonist to speak of and all the characters are schizophrenic from over-editing (oh look, that's exactly what I'm doing once I finish my WiP), I break the story into scenes and then I go through with a crit partner and detail which scenes are strongest and staying, and which have to go. The cut ones get a read-through for salvage material, and the others get thrown into the "keeper" basket. When I'm ready to evaluate what I have left, I make an outline and start to figure out which dots need connecting. Once I've filled in the new material and connected it to what originally existed "mostly seamlessly", I then begin to work on smaller elements of the story: characterization, dialogue, tension elements like foreshadowing, and the rest of it.
As I edit (once the story is complete), I continue to work smaller, following this guide I developed to make the job easier: Target Editing - A Time-Saving Strategy for Writers
If I'm rewriting a whole weak story that doesn't have an antagonist to speak of and all the characters are schizophrenic from over-editing (oh look, that's exactly what I'm doing once I finish my WiP), I break the story into scenes and then I go through with a crit partner and detail which scenes are strongest and staying, and which have to go. The cut ones get a read-through for salvage material, and the others get thrown into the "keeper" basket. When I'm ready to evaluate what I have left, I make an outline and start to figure out which dots need connecting. Once I've filled in the new material and connected it to what originally existed "mostly seamlessly", I then begin to work on smaller elements of the story: characterization, dialogue, tension elements like foreshadowing, and the rest of it.
As I edit (once the story is complete), I continue to work smaller, following this guide I developed to make the job easier: Target Editing - A Time-Saving Strategy for Writers
buyjupiter
Scribal Lord
I start with reverse outlining the whole thing. I'm not much of an outliner at the beginning of the writing process, but boy am I an outliner at the END of the process.
An outline shows me the high points of each scene and the progression of my scenes. Are my scenes too linear? A straight A-->B journey? Then I throw in some stuff that is fun for me (and hopefully the reader) that takes it just enough off track that it isn't "boring" yet not too far off track that it's "too complicated". (I don't want to go into Neal Stephenson 60 page digressions just cuz territory. As entertaining as that is, I'm not Neal Stephenson, and I doubt I could pull it off. Yet.)
That outline also helps me crystallize what happens within a scene in as few words as possible. If I can't summarize the scene with a sentence or two, I go back and look over what went wrong. And then fix it until I can summarize the scene in a sentence or two.
I also tend to, in first draft, write more of a script than an actual story. All the key things are there, the plot, the characters, the basic setting and details...but in successive drafts (usually around 4-5) I add in more details, more showing of emotions, sometimes more characters when I realize that my two MCs are doing all the work and no one is that much personality all by themselves.
I've gone through 4-5 rewrites on my own before I send it out to my first critique partner(s) and then I usually go through another 2-3 (depending on how badly some things need to be fixed). By the time I'm removing extraneous commas, and putting in my em-dashes, I'm sick of looking at the story.
An outline shows me the high points of each scene and the progression of my scenes. Are my scenes too linear? A straight A-->B journey? Then I throw in some stuff that is fun for me (and hopefully the reader) that takes it just enough off track that it isn't "boring" yet not too far off track that it's "too complicated". (I don't want to go into Neal Stephenson 60 page digressions just cuz territory. As entertaining as that is, I'm not Neal Stephenson, and I doubt I could pull it off. Yet.)
That outline also helps me crystallize what happens within a scene in as few words as possible. If I can't summarize the scene with a sentence or two, I go back and look over what went wrong. And then fix it until I can summarize the scene in a sentence or two.
I also tend to, in first draft, write more of a script than an actual story. All the key things are there, the plot, the characters, the basic setting and details...but in successive drafts (usually around 4-5) I add in more details, more showing of emotions, sometimes more characters when I realize that my two MCs are doing all the work and no one is that much personality all by themselves.
I've gone through 4-5 rewrites on my own before I send it out to my first critique partner(s) and then I usually go through another 2-3 (depending on how badly some things need to be fixed). By the time I'm removing extraneous commas, and putting in my em-dashes, I'm sick of looking at the story.
Well...
I start with an idea, which becomes the rough draft. I do a fair bit of tweaking as I'm writing it, because otherwise it bugs me way too much.
Then I do other things for a while...days, weeks, months...and unfortunately, sometimes...years.
Then I read it again, asking questions like: 'Is this part necessary?' and 'could I state this better?' and 'Is this in the right place?' and 'should I write some additional scenes?' I insert little notes into the text to point these items out.
Next, I do the rough rewrite - entire blocks of text vanish, moved to a 'story.work' file. (entire chapters in some cases) Scenes get moved around as needed. After this, I write the filler stuff - the additional scenes and connecting bits. The result is usually something far more readable.
Then I go do something else for a while...again.
Reread later on, followed by plot hole plugging and hunting grammar bugs. I've got a couple of longer works at this stage.
I start with an idea, which becomes the rough draft. I do a fair bit of tweaking as I'm writing it, because otherwise it bugs me way too much.
Then I do other things for a while...days, weeks, months...and unfortunately, sometimes...years.
Then I read it again, asking questions like: 'Is this part necessary?' and 'could I state this better?' and 'Is this in the right place?' and 'should I write some additional scenes?' I insert little notes into the text to point these items out.
Next, I do the rough rewrite - entire blocks of text vanish, moved to a 'story.work' file. (entire chapters in some cases) Scenes get moved around as needed. After this, I write the filler stuff - the additional scenes and connecting bits. The result is usually something far more readable.
Then I go do something else for a while...again.
Reread later on, followed by plot hole plugging and hunting grammar bugs. I've got a couple of longer works at this stage.
psychotick
Dark Lord
Hi,
It depends how serious it is and why you're doing it. If you've suddenly decided your plot sucks and want to start again, then that's fairly much what I'd do. I've axed chapters before - unfortunately recently. If it's more of a tone thing or a character that's not working, I'd just go through the book doing a find and no replace, and alter what's there piece by piece, making sure that any plot changes caused by the alterations are dealt with. In that case you need to keep a log with you of the changes you want to make so that as you come to each section you can be true to it, and also a record of the changes you made so that if it hits plot and you get continuity issues, you can deal with them.
And remember these things can come back to bite you. In Alien Caller I changed the location of a town where my MC lived by a couple of states. It worked better in the new state for travel times etc. Only problem I forgot the capital city nearby which effectively messed things up. Two mentions of the wrong city and I got reviews pointing out my geographical stupidity and the impossible travel times.
Cheers, Greg.
It depends how serious it is and why you're doing it. If you've suddenly decided your plot sucks and want to start again, then that's fairly much what I'd do. I've axed chapters before - unfortunately recently. If it's more of a tone thing or a character that's not working, I'd just go through the book doing a find and no replace, and alter what's there piece by piece, making sure that any plot changes caused by the alterations are dealt with. In that case you need to keep a log with you of the changes you want to make so that as you come to each section you can be true to it, and also a record of the changes you made so that if it hits plot and you get continuity issues, you can deal with them.
And remember these things can come back to bite you. In Alien Caller I changed the location of a town where my MC lived by a couple of states. It worked better in the new state for travel times etc. Only problem I forgot the capital city nearby which effectively messed things up. Two mentions of the wrong city and I got reviews pointing out my geographical stupidity and the impossible travel times.
Cheers, Greg.
As mentioned above, it depends on what type of rewriting you're doing. If you have to restructure the whole narrative, then that can take a ton of work. Usually that starts with an outline of the story. If the story was pantsed, I reverse engineer an outline of the story.
Once I have the outline of the original form, I create a new outline and see what can get transplanted over using the old outline as a guide to what have.
Other times, rewriting is just about replacing a weak scene with a stronger one. For me, that's just about understanding what the purpose of that scene is and what work it does. Once I know that, it's just about arriving at the same destination but travelling a more interesting path.
A simple way in which I look at a scene is it's a magic box. A character gets in, stuff happens, and the character gets out changed, like now they're wearing a hat or have a scar or are emotionally traumatized or anything of significance.
In terms of structure and plot, it kind of doesn't matter what happened inside the box so long as the desired end result is achieved. Now, I'm not saying it's not important. It is, because that will in part determine the quality of the story.
I mean there's a significant difference between a character, while in the box, just finding the hat on the floor, and the character, while in the box, killing 50 ninjas and 12 zombies to get the hat.
What I'm getting at is as long as you know that a character walks into a scene without a hat and exits it with one, you can redesign the scene how ever you want and simple just plug it back into the story without too much worry of having to change things significantly in other sections of the story, if at all.
Once I have the outline of the original form, I create a new outline and see what can get transplanted over using the old outline as a guide to what have.
Other times, rewriting is just about replacing a weak scene with a stronger one. For me, that's just about understanding what the purpose of that scene is and what work it does. Once I know that, it's just about arriving at the same destination but travelling a more interesting path.
A simple way in which I look at a scene is it's a magic box. A character gets in, stuff happens, and the character gets out changed, like now they're wearing a hat or have a scar or are emotionally traumatized or anything of significance.
In terms of structure and plot, it kind of doesn't matter what happened inside the box so long as the desired end result is achieved. Now, I'm not saying it's not important. It is, because that will in part determine the quality of the story.
I mean there's a significant difference between a character, while in the box, just finding the hat on the floor, and the character, while in the box, killing 50 ninjas and 12 zombies to get the hat.
What I'm getting at is as long as you know that a character walks into a scene without a hat and exits it with one, you can redesign the scene how ever you want and simple just plug it back into the story without too much worry of having to change things significantly in other sections of the story, if at all.
Butterfly
Dark Lord
I'm coming to the last last ten chapters of a complete rewrite of my second book.
I start with a spreadsheet of all the chapters, word length, summary of scenes, and problems to fix, bits to add, to change, etc. Then I work through each one, highlighting which ones I've completed. I find it useful if I turn the text of a chapter into bold, and work through, unboldening paragraphs as I go. That way I can see what I've rewritten, read, and reviewed and what I haven't. I try to work through a chapter over 1-3 days.
I start with a spreadsheet of all the chapters, word length, summary of scenes, and problems to fix, bits to add, to change, etc. Then I work through each one, highlighting which ones I've completed. I find it useful if I turn the text of a chapter into bold, and work through, unboldening paragraphs as I go. That way I can see what I've rewritten, read, and reviewed and what I haven't. I try to work through a chapter over 1-3 days.
Arranah
Journeyman
Writing is all about the rewrite. Generally the first few times through it, it's still junk. Rewriting allows for the finesse, the skill of the writer to come out, develop and blossom. Like anything else, it's all about gaining skills.
This thread reminded me, I wrote another article about a rewrite. Here it is: One Mistake Never to Repeat - How to Plan a Novel
It wasn't pretty, but I'm about to finish this novel once and for all. Whew, what a journey.
It wasn't pretty, but I'm about to finish this novel once and for all. Whew, what a journey.
cupiscent
Mystagogue
I've recently finished major revisions, which I'd term a rewrite. I got to the end of the first draft, and realised that I was really happy with my ending, but the beginning and middle didn't match it. So I changed structure, included new bits, cut old bits out.
From that experience, I agree with those recommending planning. My process was to look at what I had, consider what I wanted it to be, and then plan the changes I would need to make to get from one to the other. In this, I adapted Susan Dennard's really helpful revision process, but I also, essentially, replotted my entire novel from first principles: I went back to who my protagonists and antagonists were, and what the major reversal points between them were - which was really great for showing me where my pace had lagged or where things were going too much one way. And I wrote out a summary for every scene (yes, all 114 or however many I had), trying my hardest to follow the template of: "[Protagonist] wants to [goal], but [antagonist of the scene] intervenes, and [complications arising]".
And then I took my new list of scenes - some largely unchanged, some wildly different, some brand new - and basically wrote that book from start to finish. Where the scenes were adapted from the first draft, I typed from the old version - I never cut and paste, always typed in fresh, giving myself more permission to change as I went. I still came across a few parts where my planning hadn't considered all the little detail, so I had some glitches, but I just marked them to return to, and tidied them all up at the end. There weren't as many as I feared there would be!
I'll note that I didn't worry too much about felicity of expression in this round of revisions. This was about getting the story in the right shape. I went back afterwards and read for grammar, description and beauty.
From that experience, I agree with those recommending planning. My process was to look at what I had, consider what I wanted it to be, and then plan the changes I would need to make to get from one to the other. In this, I adapted Susan Dennard's really helpful revision process, but I also, essentially, replotted my entire novel from first principles: I went back to who my protagonists and antagonists were, and what the major reversal points between them were - which was really great for showing me where my pace had lagged or where things were going too much one way. And I wrote out a summary for every scene (yes, all 114 or however many I had), trying my hardest to follow the template of: "[Protagonist] wants to [goal], but [antagonist of the scene] intervenes, and [complications arising]".
And then I took my new list of scenes - some largely unchanged, some wildly different, some brand new - and basically wrote that book from start to finish. Where the scenes were adapted from the first draft, I typed from the old version - I never cut and paste, always typed in fresh, giving myself more permission to change as I went. I still came across a few parts where my planning hadn't considered all the little detail, so I had some glitches, but I just marked them to return to, and tidied them all up at the end. There weren't as many as I feared there would be!
I'll note that I didn't worry too much about felicity of expression in this round of revisions. This was about getting the story in the right shape. I went back afterwards and read for grammar, description and beauty.
that's really solid advice for how to take what you want to save and basically rewrite it at the same time. Often, I think there's an urge to "salvage" what you can, but the more writing I do, the less I find myself on salvage missions, because in the long run, it takes less time to just rewrite and edit after.
Addison
Dark Lord
I do mine in stages. First I read the story on the computer, chapter by chapter, making individual chapter notes. Either things that need fixing, double checking or just listing characters. Then I read the whole thing start to finish, in my head. Then I print it out and read it aloud so I can actually hear the words. Things sound differently between reading them in your head and saying them aloud. Finally I do a backwards outline. Starting at the final scene and listing the scenes all the way to the beginning. It's really helped, making me think how the characters got where they are and everything else.
But remember, no matter how many times you rewrite-rewrite-rewrite, it won't mean anything until you have someone else read it! It's painful the first time but just do it. Your mom, cousin, the post man, get someone to read it, actually more than one. Then you'll get a collective response as to what needs clarification, explanation etc.
But remember, no matter how many times you rewrite-rewrite-rewrite, it won't mean anything until you have someone else read it! It's painful the first time but just do it. Your mom, cousin, the post man, get someone to read it, actually more than one. Then you'll get a collective response as to what needs clarification, explanation etc.