AFTER THE FIRST DRAFT -- ZETTE'S APPROACH TO REWRITING

 

Many writers dread rewriting. They get bored. They've already told the story, and they don't want to do it again. There are no spelling errors, and the grammar is good, so why bother, right? 

 

No story is ever perfect in the first draft. Or in the second... or ever, really.

 

Other writers avoid it because once they're finished rewrites they have to let the story out the door to stand on it's own and face the brutal world of publishing. That's part of the world of a writer.  Learn to face it.

 

If you never get that far, you'll never be published.  If you aren't going to send material out, don't waste your time worrying about rewrites.  What you have in that case is a hobby, not a possible career. 

 

Everyone who sends out material faces rejection.  Holly has rejections.  S.L. Viehl has rejections.  I have a couple files with rejections shoved in them.  But many of those pieces have since sold.

 

Most of what I present in this class applies equally to short stories and novels, poems and nonfiction articles.  Editing is a matter of approach on your end, and has less to do with the material you work with than you might think.

 

For the purposes of this class, I'm going to assume that your first draft story is on the computer, not handwritten.  I know that some of you handwrite first, and then type, and so might catch a few of these things when you make that transfer.

 

How you create your first draft is not important, as long as you get it onto the computer.  So if you write by hand, type the stuff in *without serious editing* and work with it there.  A story typed up looks far different than one handwritten.  Your approach to editing it will be more professional.

 

Class One -- Approaching the problem

 

So you've finally finished your first draft -- short story or novel, it doesn't matter.  You've done it!  In fact you have done the one thing that many would-be writers never achieve.  You're excited and ready to prepare it to go out. 

 

But when you look at the material quite often you find that you either hate the mere sight of it after working on it for so long, or you just don't know where to start.  This is the second point, right after actually finishing something, where new authors often fail.

 

This class will cover how I handle rewrites.  I love to rewrite, and I hope that by giving you some pointers that have helped me, I can get you past the hurdle of approaching this work.

 

Step 1:  The problems of rewriting while you work on the first draft

 

There's been a discussion of bashers verses swoopers on the Discussion board. A basher is a writer who meticulously works out each line as she goes along, and supposedly ends with a perfect draft.

 

A swooper sits down and writes the story straight through, with little or no editing along the way, and has something that needs considerable rewriting at the end. This may seem like a waste, but quite often it works for the best.

 

There are two big problems with Bashers.  When they finish, they often really believe that they really have a perfect story, and will ignore editing.  That's if they finish at all.  From years of working with writers, I can tell you that bashers are less likely to complete their material.

 

This is especially true of new writers.  A new writer, with little or no experience at completing a manuscript, is most likely to get lost, bored, and frustrated if they try to make everything perfect with each word they put down.

 

Then, finding that they have to rewrite anyway -- because almost everyone does -- will make all that work seem even more annoying.  They are most apt to give up. Swoopers will give up as well, but at the same point in the 'after the first draft' that bashers sometimes do.

 

I believe that the real answer lies in the middle of the two.  I may look like a swooper to most people, but I will often edit and delete obvious problems as I go along.  That only makes sense, if you've written a couple paragraphs and find that they just don't work.

 

However, if I have killed off a character in chapter one and then find that I'd rather wait and kill him in chapter ten, I will not go back and make that change right away.  I will note it for the rewrite and fix it later.

 

QUESTIONS

 

• @zette--  That was a lot longer than I intended! Sorry!
• Robert--  I liked your saying it's the middle ground. I've been a pure swooper several years and now I'm bashing a bit. But not a lot. Only if I get stuck. That's a good thing?
• BarGnat--  But it was clear
• Catherine Driscoll/splodge--  I'm middling too.
• @zette--  I think middle ground works best.  I have one friend who (as I've said before) rewrote the first three chapters of his novel for years.  He even had a publisher interested.  But he couldn't get past the first three because he was a basher.
• @zette--  Okay, we're going to get into some real stuff now.

 

CLASS 

 

Step 2. Put the work aside and don't look at it for a week or longer.

 

Write something else.  Don't tell me you can't come up with another story -- if you want to be a writer, you have to start generating ideas at all times.  Looking out the window at the birds should give you story ideas. 

 

Glancing through the daily writing exercises should create entire short story anthologies for you, or at least a bunch of scenes for a new novel.  Find ways to generate ideas, in whatever way triggers your mind.

 

Yes, this is an important part of the rewriting process.  One of the big problems that writers often have is investing too much in a single story.  You can't make a career of a single short story or novel.

 

Putting distance between you and the manuscript is an important step in learning how to rewrite.  If you finish a story at 5:16pm and start editing at 5:20pm, you are too close to it to see flaws and omissions.

 

Some people put a story aside for a few days and don't work on anything else.  This isn't as good as working on another manuscript, for two reasons. First, your mind is still apt to hold on to the first story if it's not diverted.

 

Second is that if you really intend to make a career in writing, you cannot afford to linger over one story for too long.  You might want to work on something totally different from what you just finished -- poetry instead of another short story, for instance.

 

Or go do some world building for another piece.  Just cut yourself off from the story and forget about it for a while.  This gets easier, by the way, with the more stories you do.

 

QUESTIONS

• @zette--  (Nice short piece there!)
• BarGnat-- 
• Robert--  It's not the amount of time but whether you changed tracks and worked on something else?
• BarGnat--  For me, it's both
• @zette--  It's both, Robert.  If you work on something for half a day, it
• @zette--  it's still going to be too soon to go back to the first piece.
• Yvonne--  Think this is off topic: does outlining help to work out structural problems before you start writing?
• @zette--  Are the rest of you keeping up?
• DragonDancer--  is there such thing as too much time between writing and rewriting?
• Catherine Driscoll/splodge--  Yep...all clear so far...
• JamiJo--  I was a little behind but I think I'm all good now
• @zette--  It does for some people, but not all Yvonne.  Some people start writing and feel constrained by the outline and go off on other tracks anyway.  But that really isn't rewrite stuff.
• Gayle--  yes...I'm still with you
• Yvonne--  ok
• @zette--  We're going to assume for the class that you have a first draft, however you got it.  (grin)
• Catherine Driscoll/splodge--  A lot of the material from the beginning of my novel I'm looking at now I wrote ages ago (two years)...I guess that doesn't count?
• @zette--  Doesn't matter when you wrote it.  So long as you finish it.  (grin)
• DragonDancer--  ok, that's good... Thank you
• @zette--  Okay, on to this... we'll have a long question period at the end, too, so don't worry if you think of something and we don't get to it here.
• Steven--  k
• Catherine Driscoll/splodge--  No I mean, I finished the end of the novel a couple of days agao - I wrote the beginning two years ago
• @zette--  Ah!  Still let it sit for a bit.  It will help when you do the next step I'm about to talk about.  (grin)

CLASS

 

So, let's say you have set the work aside.  You come back to it.  Now what?

 

Step 3 -- Saving the baby.

 

You finally pull the story out.  If you have put sufficient distance between you and the manuscript, the first reading will almost always uncover an obvious problem or two. 

 

But not 'This story sucks, I'm going to burn it!' problems.

 

In fact, let me address that one right now.  No story is so horrible it can't be fixed.  It may take several rewrites.  It may take a reworking of the entire ending, and cutting scenes, and who knows what else.

 

Writers always fail to perfectly convert the story in their heads into a manuscript.  Words cannot capture what a writer sees in the mind's eye.  You are never going to do it perfectly, but you can get closer if you edit. 

 

Don't throw away a finished story.  All you are doing is playing the 'artist angst' game.  "Oh, I've got to show everyone how much I suffer, and how serious I am.  The only way I can do that is to throw out all my material. That proves I'm not a hack."

 

All this really proves is that you're not a writer.  You're not going to get anywhere by discarding your finished work.  Yes, there may be material that you never go back and rewrite some of them, but only because you've written others.

 

I have sold at least three short stories that I gave up as horrible at the time I finished them -- Transgressed, Those Who Reach, and Broken Wings.  I had shoved them into my 'short story' file on the computer and didn't look at them again for quite a while. 

 

Two of those I pulled out for the short story rewrite dare when I started running low on material.  I reworked them.  One of them, Broken Wings, I rewrote twice in one dare.  And I sold it and have gotten some of my best short story feedback on it.

 

I have sold novels that were very poorly written when I did them twenty years ago, but rewrites have saved.  A story, no matter how badly written in the first draft, still holds the vision of your imagination.  You can improve that later.

 

It may be that all you save from an old story is a couple lines of great dialogue, or a great character you can drop into another story.  You may only save the idea.  But if you destroy it, you've wasted your time.  End of story, so to speak.

 

That's what a rewrite is about -- saving the story.

 

QUESTIONS

 

• @zette--  (Actually, it's the next section, Catherine.  I forgot this part!)
• Robert--  What if you threw out five bad novels and redid them as two good ones to get the series back on track? Does that mean that old junk the time travelers changed is worth something?
• @zette--  This is section is just about attitude.  You have to have the right attitude to edit well.
• Robert--  Or should I just count that mess as the earlier draft of the two good novels?
• @zette--  Throwing out means literally trashing everything you have on the story.  And never having the ability to go back, reread and pick up anything good from it, except what's left in your brain.
• @zette--  This is kind of esoteric stuff, but it's part of how you need to approach editing.  If you start out with a 'this sucks, trash it' attitude, you aren't going to get far.
• Catherine Driscoll/splodge--  hmmm.  Not tempted to do that.  Too much bloody work! g--
• @zette--  I know people, right here at Forward Motion, who have finished work and thrown it out. That is not the same as not finishing something, by the way.

 

CLASS

 

Step 4 -- The First Read

 

If you have put sufficient distance between you and the story, reading it now should prove insightful.  You will likely find places where the leap you made in the story isn't quite as obvious as it was in your mind.

 

I don't print out the story at this point.  I don't see any point in wasting the paper, since this is just a read through and note-taking expedition.  Novels should be read all the way through at this point, not a chapter at a time and fix.  This is to get the feel of the entire piece.

 

You can handle problems you find in a couple ways.  If it's just a matter of a few missing words, a misspelled name, a rewrite of a sentence or something like that, go ahead and do some changes now.

 

If you can't quite see how to fix it at this point, make a note of it and move on.  You can put a break in the story itself with something like an all capitalized sentence saying FIX THIS with a line or two of what you see wrong.

 

Or you can write the problem on a note card or yellow sticky note.  Be sure to write page number and any other pointers to the location of the problem.  I find this one works better for me for novels because if I find related problems, I can group them together on one note.

 

Then move on.  Don't sit and fret over the problems while you read.  Get all the way to the end and then look at what you've found.  You may find a pattern that you can work out for a group of problems.

 

There is one important question to keep in mind when you do this reading:  Did your story deliver the promises it gave to the reader?  If you started with a murder of a shuttle pilot, you had better solve that murder by the end.

 

If you start with a young girl wishing for love, you must answer that wish -- but that doesn't mean she has to get what she wants.  The reader just has to know how the wish is answered.

 

These problems are most often seen in novels, and we'll deal with some of the other problems usually related to novel rewrites in the next section.

 

In other words, this is the part where you fix any glaring problems. Don't worry about grammar, spelling, and tinkering with sentences at this point.  Get the flow of the story down.

 

In the next section I'll cover some of the specific big problems you might find.

 

QUESTIONS

 

• Steven--  so basically this part is just for "plot problems" so to speak?
• Robert--  I'm in this class because I had a *weird* probloem for many years. My rewrites came out lousier than the first drafts for years.
• Yvonne--  if you have to go through and add more description throughout the whole book, do you do this on the first pass or later?
• Steven--  information didn't get conveyed to the reader, etc?
• @zette--  Exactly.  You want to do plot problems before you do line edits, because you'll just have to do line edits again afterwards.
• @zette--  Yes, this would be the time, Yvonne.
• Steven--  makes sense.
• BarGnat--  Since I do all my writing/rewriting on the computer, I use @@@ to mark all notes, then usually color-code anything further along that applies to any such notes. Makes it easier when I go back and do the rewriting
• @zette--  All of that kind of stuff.  Get it i now, before you work on the tinkering, otherwise you have to go and tinker all over again.
• @zette--  Sounds good, Mary!  (BarGnat)
• BarGnat--  Although it doesn't entirely get rid of the risk of revision rash
• Yvonne--  revision rash?
• Steven--  hehehe
• BarGnat--  where you think you've replaced the unwanted with the new stuff, but didn't get it all deleted, Yvonne
• Steven--  oh, right, you missed that conversation in chat, Yvonne.
• Robert--  "who's Rick and when did he come into this scene?" Georgia my proofreader, I'd changed him to James.
• Yvonne--  oh
• @zette--  We're going to cover one more section, and then we'll discuss any problems that any of you have with this sort of material.  Next week we'll go into the closer detail rewriting stuff.
• Steven--  okay
• BarGnat--  sounds good
• @zette--  Okay then, off we go again!

CLASS

 

Step 5 -- Fixing Big Problems

 

Maybe you realize that having your MC's (main characters) leap on the shuttle and take it over to fly to the capital is too obvious.  Maybe it's even stupid since there is a perfectly fine train that goes there, and they can sneak in without a problem.

 

So you will have to rework all the material where the shuttle came into the story.  Do a 'find' with your word processor and look at all the material around 'shuttle' and take it out or rework it. 

 

Look for related words as well, like fly.   This is one of the things that can be easy for a short story and a pain for a novel.  But fixing obvious plot holes like that is an important first step.

 

If you found places where you went 'What?" while reading the manuscript, start looking at how to change that situation now.  This is not easy, but it can help make a better story.

 

Don't be afraid to make these kinds of changes at this point.  If you see something in the plot that just doesn't sit right with you, don't blow over it.  Look carefully and make sure that it is needed.

 

But also don't go overboard and take out or change large sections just because you think of something totally unrelated that would be 'fun' to write now.  Save that for a new novel.  Limit what you do to improving what you have.

 

Novels face certain problems in this first rewrite that people doing shorter material don't usually have to worry about.  The first is continuity. Did you forget a story line you started, and left that part unfinished and unanswered?

 

Look at all your major plot points and make certain that they're tied up at the end.  Make sure you didn't forget some character you sent off to spy on another city, and never got back to.

 

You might want to do a chapter chart to follow the story. These are easy.  Write out the list of chapter numbers, and then after each number write down a sentence or two of what happens, and who the POV (Point of View) Character is. 

 

You might add a timeline point to the chapter list as well, just to make sure that you have events happening in the right order.  I once had someone telling the MC a major plot problem before it happened.

 

By the way, this kind of chart will also be a great help when you later do a synopsis.

 

Creating subplots in novels is often part of the rewrite section.  This is helpful for anyone, like me, who tends to write short linear first drafts that take the MC from point a to point z with few side trips.

 

Subplots cannot just be tacked on to a story.  They have to be related to the main plot.  Look at what's happened in your story and find places where you can expand something you glossed over.

 

You might want to write in a new POV character at this point.  In one of my novels, I found that I had my MCs running from an enemy that we only saw through the eyes of one of the characters.

 

So I created an entire subplot that covered what the 'bad guys' were doing, and interspersed the novel with chapters in the POV of their main character.  This added considerable depth to the story.

 

I could now give more than the MC's biased view of why things had gone wrong.  I was able to bring in panicked people who saw my MC as someone who would ruin an entire way of life that they believed in.

 

Another problem most often faced with novels is the dreaded opening.  Where to start a novel or a short story can be really troublesome, and then having done so... quite often they don't work.

 

Very often writers will try to give too much info at the opening. They'll want to start with the MC's childhood and work through to the first battle.  That material will most often work better as either back story or flashback material.

 

Flashbacks are obviously where we step out of the flow of the timeline, and relive something that happened in the past:

 

So, instead of starting the book with a child standing on the shore and watching some ships, for a flashback you might have the older MC, sitting at the Inn's table and remembering his past in vivid 'we are there' detail.

 

He had been standing on the shore when he saw the pirates the first time.  He didn't realize that the beautiful high masts of the ships meant death for his people.

 

Back story is taking the same material and working the knowledge into the current timeline:

 

When the barmaid asked Albius how he had become a pirate, he told her about standing on the shore and watching the beautiful high masts of the ships just before they invaded and killed his people.

 

By the way, that might be better done in dialogue.  At any rate, if you find that you have too much build up and dragging along until something happens -- cut to the chase.  Fill in the material as part of the story.

 

A reader does not need to know everything about the MC, or the world around him, before the action starts. That's a good way to lose readers, in fact.  Remember that the reader wants to be entertained, and excited.

 

Always keep the reader in mind.

 

This is the end of the first class.  In the next one we'll start looking at the 'nitpicking' problems of rewrites, rather than the 'vision' problems that we've covered here.

 

• Steven--  um. just checking - this last part was supposed to be part 5, not part 4, yes?
• @zette--  This is where you can talk about specific problems you face.
• Robert--  This is that 'lousier second draft' question - how can I tell when the rewrite is gutting a story and making it blander and nicer and more dull than the rough draft?
• @zette--  Did I not get renumbered properly again?
• Catherine/splodge--  Ok - I got chucked and missed a whole lot of that!
• Yvonne--  about beginnings, should you start right at the crisis --- Jane felt the gun barrel dig into her forehead --- or should you start just before that happens?
• Steven--  you had two part 4's.
• @zette--  Take it as properly numbered.  I'll fix it in the transcript.
• Steven--  k. just checking cause I came in late just as part 3 was starting.
• @zette--  Don't worry Catherine, you can see it in the transcript.
• @zette--  Robert -- when you think it's blander, it probably is.   Rewrites fix problems, don't tone down the good prose.  If you have things you like, don't take them out just for the sake of a rewrite.
• @zette--  Yvonne -- right at the crisis will work for a lot of stuff, as long as you are able to quickly fill in how she got there without slowing down the action.
• Yvonne--  ah, thought so
• @zette--  If you can't do that, take her back a  couple steps.
• BarGnat--  What if a couple of minor characters, almost a sub-plot on a very small scale, have some great scenes but don't really fit in where you have put them?
• @zette--  But come in as close to the action as you can.  And make whatever she's doing sound as exciting and interesting as you can.
• BarGnat--  Should I keep trying to fit them in, or just hold their part back for the next book?
• @zette--  Save them for another story if they don't fit this one.  Never try to put even great stuff in if it doesn't fit the plot.
• Robert--  Yeah... now you're making me think I should mine the alt timeline for bits that might make shorter side stories.
• BarGnat--  Well, in a way, they advance the plot.... just don't know how much of it to leave in
• BarGnat--  Think I may keep trying to find the proper spot for their scenes for a while longer before I give up and save for another book
• @zette--  That's always a problem with rewriting, and it has to be the writer's call in the end.  But don't get too stuck on your own material that you can't let some of it go, if you see what I mean.
• Catherine/splodge--  Ok - here's my big question...What do you do when you've got a monster?
• @zette--  A huge book that's way too long?
• Catherine/splodge--  Yes
• @zette--  The first thing to try is finding a spot in the novel where you can break it in two pieces.
• Catherine/splodge--  Some of it is fat, some obviously is not...
• Catherine/splodge--  Ahhhh g--  - so I have a series?
• Steven--  my first thought would be "are there any subplots that aren't essential and are just there to be there?"
• @zette--  You can usually find a spot where a crisis is solved, even if it isn't the main one.  Or where a serious decision has been made that changes the rest of the story.
• @zette--  Try breaking at that point.
• @zette--  I was doing that for the second idea, Steven.  He's right.  Look at how many MCs you have, and what they're doing.  Try cutting back the number of them and their subplots.
• Catherine/splodge--  My problem is that I've very carefully woven all my subplots together g--
• Catherine/splodge--  I do have a "break" point
• Steven--  In that case, go with what zette said - find a place to split it. that would be _my_ second thought.
• @zette--  That's good, then.  I would go for the break point answer in that case.  But try to make both pieces stand alone.  You may have to add a little to the end of one and the start of the next.
• @zette--  LOL, Steven.  I think we approach it from the opposite sides is all.
• Steven--  yeah.
• DragonDancer--  how long is the average novel (where should I aim for when rewriting)?
• Catherine/splodge--  cool - that's helpful
• @zette--  Depends on Genre, DD.  F and SF novels generally run from about 80-120, 000 words, I think. 
• Steven--  yeah. that's what most publishers say for first novel submissions.
• Steven--  obviously, some are longer. and some are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer. LOL
• DragonDancer--  thank you. I needed to know if I was going to have to cut or add a whole lot
• @zette--  Some are less, some are longer.  Mystery tends to run shorter.  Young Adult can run much shorter -- the 45-60,000 range.
• Yvonne--  what do you do with a 60k ms? how do you beef it up?
• @zette--  The publisher at DAW once told me that they prefer first author submissions in the 80-100,000 range.  I think ACE was about the same way.
• @zette--  That's where you start looking for subplots, Yvonne.
• Yvonne--  just subplots, or do you add characters too?
• Steven--  subplots? more description? expand the main plot? - there's a couple ways I can think of just from what zette said in the class part.
• @zette--  Try listing out all the major points in the story, and then see if there is another angle at that point, a place where another character may be looking at, or working for or against the same thing.
• Yvonne--  hmm, too bad all the people with short WIPs aren't in here
• Steven--  or zette's example of the alternate POV
• BarGnat--  how short?
• Robert--  I've got one of those too, my 3 Day Novel is only 37,650 words. Kicking it to 80 will be rough!
• @zette--  You can add subplots with or without new characters.  Taking a 60,000 and adding just more description to make it 80,000 or more is going to really weigh it down in description.  Adding more story is better.
• BarGnat--  I always have at least one short story on the back burner
• Steven--  I wouldn't fill in 20k just with description, but you can do a bit of that.
• @zette--  You can also look for new obstacles to put in the path of your MCs and stop them on the way to their goals.  That can add quite a bit as they overcome them.
• @zette--  Oh yeah, you can get quite a bit that way, Steven.
• @zette--  And most often it's needed, too. But we'll be going over adding description next week, I think.  (grin)
• Steven--  heh
• BarGnat--  hehehe
• DragonDancer--  I think I was just kicked
• @zette--  So, is this helpful at all?  Get you in the right frame of mind for editing?
• Steven--  my problem is I  "know" what to do - implementing it is often a whole other ball of wax.
• BarGnat--  yes, indeed, and thank you very much
• Catherine/splodge--  yep - lots of help!
• @zette--  Yeah, me too, Steven.  I should try following my own rules more often. (grin)
• Steven--  but, yes, this is helping.
• Robert--  Very... it's starting to look doable! One of the biggest things I'm looking for is to change my attitude and make rewriting fun - to catch up with me!
• JamiJo--  all i need now is to learn patience...
• Anon_82--  this was very helpful!
• Steven--  and sometimes I get so bogged down in the nitpicking the first time thru that I forget to keep an eye on the overall story arc.
• @zette--  That is a big part of it.  Don't look at it as horrid work.  It really is fun.  It's your chance to make the story closer to your vision of it, and you can find all kinds of neat little things to add in.
• Yvonne--  is there an average length of time to let the rough draft rest before looking at it again?
• @zette--  That can be a problem, Steven.  A lot of people do that, and lose track of what the story.
• Robert--  You gave me the idea on the read through of pretending I'd never read *any* of it, like reading it in character as someone who never read it and doesn't know what i had in my mind while writing.
• Gayle--  This has definitely put idea's in my head for the Master rewrite novel dare I'm doing
• Steven--  Like I'll be watching the story arc the first third of the way thru, then i notice something really horrendous grammatically. "oooh, I've got to fix that" and before I know it, I'm line editing.
• @zette--  The longer the better, Yvonne.  But at least a week, with something written in between.  Get away from it.
• Yvonne--  but not like years, right?
• BarGnat--  why not?
• BarGnat--  as long as you're writing during that time period
• Steven--  lol.
• @zette--  No, not years.  Not unless, like me, you have so much stuff built up in the files that you might take a year or more of rewriting other material before you get back to it.
• Robert--  Um, that would be me - though the early books in my series will go better now that I know what happens later.
• @zette--  If you go too long, then it's just another excuse for not putting stuff out.
• Steven--  yeah.
• BarGnat--  For me, the perfect time is when I can start going through it feeling like a reader not a writer
• Steven--  I think the "doing other stuff in between" is the writing equivalent of "cleansing the palate"
• BarGnat--  good point, Steven
• @zette--  That's something to always keep in mind -- that you really want to be published.

 

Lazette Gifford
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Managing Editor, Holly Lisle's Vision (http://lazette.net/vision)
Home Page: http://lazette.net

Show me a writer who isn't totally obsessed, and I'll show you a hobbyist. -- S.L. Viehl