If You Please

[mmerriam]

My question, O Wise and Glorious Flist, is this: how do you approach a major rewrite?

I've done big rewrites on shorter pieces, but never on a full novel. I seek your input and suggestions. Tell me how you attack this kind of project.

Share you wisdom and experience.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, for heaven's sake, don't do it my way.

[gerardbrennan.livejournal.com]

I've only done it once, but I rewrote an 80K ms a few months ago. Not sure if you'll find this helpful, but here's how I tackled it.

It had gone through critters, so the first thing I did was action the suggestions I agreed with in the word document. Then I left it for four months. I'd intended to wait two months, but time flies.

Then I printed out a paper copy, read it with a red pen in my hand and underlined clumsy sentences, weeded out typos and made notes on places I felt lacked description or clarity.

After I made those small changes I read it again, making notes on the main characters and the plot, picking up the odd inconsistency.

A few more changes and I read it again.

Then I read the first three chapters three times before sending them out.

I've resisted reading it since.

gb

[ktsparrow.livejournal.com]

1. Read it all at once, (if possible) on paper
2. Make grandiose comments only. Nothing little.
3. Make little notes on all the chaps about what happens. Lay them out helter skelter and look at them. Shuffle around, delete, etc.

(This is what I've done when the issues are plotty, so I'm not sure if it would work for other big rewrite issues.)

Good luck!

[palinade.livejournal.com]

I like to keep notes of what I like in either the margins (if handwriting) or as the header (on word doc). Usually these are character types or plot bits or world building stuff.

Outling helps some. For some, writing down the major plot shifts helps. Then fill in the bits that get the characters to and from the plot shifts. You can always do multiple tree branches to see if some other option sounds better. You end up with a bizarre chart, but since you've got a draft done, you can go back and see where it went where you hadn't intended and refix it. You could do the same thing by making similar notes on the pages of the actual draft (or insert another page, like a footnote).

I'm an old-school editor who likes to work with pencil, post-its, and notepad spread out before me like some giant gigsaw puzzle. By the end of a first read, the manuscript looks like some bird with feathers sticking every which way. Depending on your approach (editing before rewrite or just rewriting), you could go through your old ms. and flag things you like (one color post it) and things you don't (another color or a big red dot or something). HtH.

[jerrygordon.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on how you approach the draft. If you're a basher (who beats each chapter to death before moving to the next) you might go one route. If you're a swooper (who works in quick successive drafts) you might go a different route.

Personally, I fall somewhere between the two styles. I do some revision during the draft process, but I try to keep the momentum up by simply going back and marking change notes in the margins.

In general, I start rewrites with a clean, high level read of the manuscript. That gives me a chance to see the forest and the trees. I make a list of issues that concern or worry me. This plot line comes too late. That twist just muddies the water. This character's evolution needs more work. Big picture stuff.

Once I figure out how I'm going to tackle the big picture changes, I add those notes to the individual chapters and get started.

Probably the most important thing I do is start with a blank word processing document. Yes, it's a royal pain to retype each chapter, but I've found that if you work from an existing file, you are predisposed to stay the course.

Even with the manuscript at your side, typing from scratch allows you room to add depth on the fly. You've gotten to know the characters and situations much better over the course of writing the first draft. Approaching the rewrite in this fashion helps you use that information.

Beyond that, it's just working through the awkward sentences, small continuity issues, and typos. I tend to still have niggling doubts about this or that, but I look for outside critiques to help confirm or allay my suspicions.

[mikandra.livejournal.com]

I've revised quite a few novels and drafts. This is how I go about it:

1. put book aside for at least 3 months
2. read book
3. look at reviewers' comments (are there patterns? Stuff they mention several times?)
4. makes notes of 'easy' things to change (such as more/less setting, or better explanation of a concept or less infodumping - whatever)
5. Think about 'hard' suggestions, which require you to cut/add/change the plot and/or characters. Keep in mind where you want to story to go and the overall picture of the story in your mind.
6. do not give in to all your reviewers' wishes. If you do, you'll have a bland book no one will hate but no one will love either.
7. with all the above storybuilding behind you WRITE A SYNOPSIS

Up till now, you've done NO edits to the book

8. Divide your novel into three or four manageable 'units' where the end of each section represents closure of a certain part of the book. Write down what has to be covered in each part, and, more importantly, what happens in your first draft that is superfluous.
9. Tackle the book chapter by chapter until you're done.

[navicat.livejournal.com]

I make all the big changes first. Add stuff in, cut stuff out, rewrite stuff. I have a list of these changes and tick it off as I go (I need my lists!).

Then I run through beginning to end. I line-edit with an eye for things my betas have picked up on (like, in TWW, a tendancy to overuse 'just' that I had NO idea I'd done!). While I do this I smooth over the transitions to and from the new stuff I've added/taken away.

Then rinse and repeat :D

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

I'm doing this for the first time, start to finish. As I wrote, I revised, but not like this.

I doubt my method will help you, but here goes. I got some beta readers and got their comments. I agreed with most of what they had to say. I did not reread the draft despite not having looked at it for nearly a year.

I started with the file, copying one scene at a time into a new file and rewriting it. Some I outright deleted. I'll probably delete a few more. I am also adding scenes. I needed to up the suspense early on, so I've added a lot of scenes early on with more plot points.

It's like writing from scratch, but not. But by doing this one scene at a time, it keeps it in manageable chunks and I don't get overwelmed. So far, so good. I just won't know if it's better than before until it's finished. And get beta readers to look at it again.

[midnightfae.livejournal.com]

What kind of re-write are we talking here? Are your reorganizing, following an editor's suggestions, or a total overhaul?

[midnightfae.livejournal.com]

My typos aside, I should also note that you're going to get a different answer from me than most other people. I don't do much writing these days - aside from NaNo every year, certainly nothing long. All the writing I do accomplish these days is all film critique and review. What I do, however, is editing (again, film reviews and related articles), so I'm approaching it from *that* perspective, not the other way around.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Full rewrite after receiving crits and reviews from fellow writers. The format is very similar to the suggestions an editor or agent would produce.

Some plot issues, some character issues.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

And of course line edits and typo corrections!

[ajjones.livejournal.com]

Just let it sit, then read it as a reader (as opposed to a writer). The things that big you to read, or the things you don't quite get, alter.

Hardest (but most important) part is remaining objective.