On Rewriting
When I heard many of the writers I looked up to that good writing is rewriting, it completely threw me. I thought, "Wait, so your telling me that, even though I'm putting words on the pages, what I'm doing isn't really writing? What the hell? Then what's the point of me doing this?" (I was an over-dramatic teenager.) What I'd failed to understand--perhaps due to the way the message was communicated--was that the only way to arrive at a "finished" piece of writing is to first get a first draft down, and then go back and rework it through the process of rewriting.
(I should point out here that some writers actually rewrite as they go. These are writers who are far more experience and different than me, who have discovered that writing and rewriting concurrently works for them. I can only speak for what works for me, which is completing a first draft and then rewriting. Always remember, everybody does it differently.)
So, what exactly is rewriting and how and when does it occur in the writing process? Let's begin with the first half of that question.
Rewriting is actually a broad term used to describe two different actions: editing and revision. Now, while those latter two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, as synonyms, they are in fact two different actions. In my experience the point of differentiation really comes down to a difference in scale (which I'll expand on soon enough).
Let's go in alphabetical order.
Editing, for the most part, is a small scale matter. When a writer edits, their main objective is to make their prose as clear and elegant as possible. When a writer says they, "Edit as they go," what they mean is they tweak sentences constantly until, like all of Goldilocks' preferences in the House of the Three Bears, it's just right. What does just right mean? It means that the sentence, the paragraph, the page, the chapter, what have you, says precisely what they want it to say, in the tone they want to say it, using the diction and the sentence structures they feel will best convey said expression.
It's the nitpicking part of rewriting that virtually any writer, with a little experience, can learn to do.
Revision however is a much bigger issue, both in scale and in outcome. With revision--and here I'll talk specifically in regard to fiction--the changes that come from this can be massive.
Whole swatches of a story or a piece can get cut. You may discover in this stage of rewriting that a scene you authored, because you felt the need to clarify something about your protagonist, isn't necessary because that characteristic is implied in other scenes.
Alternatively, masses of text can end up getting added to the manuscript. To return to the previous hypothetical, say that you know the protagonist and their sidekick will end up together in the end, after their adventure is over. Yet, your first readers think that the relationship seems to develop out of the blue. That's a sign. You need to go back and add a scene, possibly two, and show your readers this burgeoning relationship for it to feel authentic and earned by the end. If its even more severe, you may end up needing to go back and rewrite whole sections of the book, add whole chapters, thus leading to a complete restructuring of the story.
Revision is the process of re-imagining the story in a different way in order for it to become its best self.
In that last hypothetical, I mentioned something that is also necessary is rewriting is going to do a piece any good: the process of getting feedback.
Once a writer acquires enough experience from writing lots of crap and trading stories with their writing friends, we're usually able to pick up the critical skill set needed to improve our own work to a certain extent. Normally, we can take our rough draft, our first draft, and improve it to the level of a second, and even third, draft. But that's just through the process of editing and through some preliminary revision.
That's when we need to show it to people.
Getting outside feedback is one of the best ways to expedite the process of rewriting. In fact, for me at least, it's a necessity. Writers always find it difficult to tell if a story works completely. Why? Because we're too emotionally involved in the piece to see it's flaws. Also, given that we know what's supposed to happen--we're the omniscient creators of our fictional worlds--we can't tell if the story is properly conveyed on the page because our minds automatically fill in the blanks. That's what outside eyes are for: to spot the points when the narrative isn't clear enough to tell the story you, the writer, want to tell.
Keep in mind though, you don't have to take every piece of feedback offered by your first readers. Learning how to tell good feedback from bad is an art-form that requires practice (which means trial by fire). Here's a preliminary means of telling good from bad:
If one person remarks on something, it's probably a matter of taste and you can ignore it.
If two people remark on something, consider taking it under advisement but put it at the bottom of your list of things to fix.
If three or more people remark on something, you'll definitely want to fix it.
Now, as to the second half of the earlier question--when should writers begin rewriting?--that is an element unique to everyone's process.
To return to the writers who write only one draft of a story and publish it, such writers often rewrite as they go, so by the time they get to the end of a piece, they've sanded the prose down so you can't tell.
If you're like me though, then rewriting begins only after a first draft is done.
One of my biggest problems when I first started to write was that I misunderstood how rewriting worked. I thought you had to agonize--as many writers, like Hemingway for instance--over every sentence before moving on to the next one. Contemporary writer, Zadie Smith, for instance, even said of her own process, "I rewrite continually, every day, over and over and over...Every day, I read from the beginning up to where I'd got to and just edit it all, and then I move on. It's incredibly laborious, and towards the end of a long novel, it's intolerable actually."
Well, I knew I didn't want to work like that, mainly because I'm lazy and have a strong aversion to anything remotely describable as agonizing. Also, I knew my own psychology. I'm a compulsive person, who always tries to do the very best, so if I had to rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, fifteen times until I could move on, I might never do so. If that's what it took to be a "real writer," I figured I wouldn't be one.
However, I discovered there were two secrets to writing (one of which I mentioned earlier).
One: there are no absolute rules.
Two: everybody does it differently.
Figuring out how you rewrite is just as important, if not more so, than figuring out how you write best. It's all a part of this strange process of becoming a writer. It's a crucial part of the process to figure out, but once you do, the doors to writing world grow exponentially wider.
So, what exactly is rewriting and how and when does it occur in the writing process? Let's begin with the first half of that question.
Rewriting is actually a broad term used to describe two different actions: editing and revision. Now, while those latter two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, as synonyms, they are in fact two different actions. In my experience the point of differentiation really comes down to a difference in scale (which I'll expand on soon enough).
Let's go in alphabetical order.
Editing, for the most part, is a small scale matter. When a writer edits, their main objective is to make their prose as clear and elegant as possible. When a writer says they, "Edit as they go," what they mean is they tweak sentences constantly until, like all of Goldilocks' preferences in the House of the Three Bears, it's just right. What does just right mean? It means that the sentence, the paragraph, the page, the chapter, what have you, says precisely what they want it to say, in the tone they want to say it, using the diction and the sentence structures they feel will best convey said expression.
It's the nitpicking part of rewriting that virtually any writer, with a little experience, can learn to do.
Revision however is a much bigger issue, both in scale and in outcome. With revision--and here I'll talk specifically in regard to fiction--the changes that come from this can be massive.
Whole swatches of a story or a piece can get cut. You may discover in this stage of rewriting that a scene you authored, because you felt the need to clarify something about your protagonist, isn't necessary because that characteristic is implied in other scenes.
Alternatively, masses of text can end up getting added to the manuscript. To return to the previous hypothetical, say that you know the protagonist and their sidekick will end up together in the end, after their adventure is over. Yet, your first readers think that the relationship seems to develop out of the blue. That's a sign. You need to go back and add a scene, possibly two, and show your readers this burgeoning relationship for it to feel authentic and earned by the end. If its even more severe, you may end up needing to go back and rewrite whole sections of the book, add whole chapters, thus leading to a complete restructuring of the story.
Revision is the process of re-imagining the story in a different way in order for it to become its best self.
In that last hypothetical, I mentioned something that is also necessary is rewriting is going to do a piece any good: the process of getting feedback.
Once a writer acquires enough experience from writing lots of crap and trading stories with their writing friends, we're usually able to pick up the critical skill set needed to improve our own work to a certain extent. Normally, we can take our rough draft, our first draft, and improve it to the level of a second, and even third, draft. But that's just through the process of editing and through some preliminary revision.
That's when we need to show it to people.
Getting outside feedback is one of the best ways to expedite the process of rewriting. In fact, for me at least, it's a necessity. Writers always find it difficult to tell if a story works completely. Why? Because we're too emotionally involved in the piece to see it's flaws. Also, given that we know what's supposed to happen--we're the omniscient creators of our fictional worlds--we can't tell if the story is properly conveyed on the page because our minds automatically fill in the blanks. That's what outside eyes are for: to spot the points when the narrative isn't clear enough to tell the story you, the writer, want to tell.
Keep in mind though, you don't have to take every piece of feedback offered by your first readers. Learning how to tell good feedback from bad is an art-form that requires practice (which means trial by fire). Here's a preliminary means of telling good from bad:
If one person remarks on something, it's probably a matter of taste and you can ignore it.
If two people remark on something, consider taking it under advisement but put it at the bottom of your list of things to fix.
If three or more people remark on something, you'll definitely want to fix it.
Now, as to the second half of the earlier question--when should writers begin rewriting?--that is an element unique to everyone's process.
To return to the writers who write only one draft of a story and publish it, such writers often rewrite as they go, so by the time they get to the end of a piece, they've sanded the prose down so you can't tell.
If you're like me though, then rewriting begins only after a first draft is done.
One of my biggest problems when I first started to write was that I misunderstood how rewriting worked. I thought you had to agonize--as many writers, like Hemingway for instance--over every sentence before moving on to the next one. Contemporary writer, Zadie Smith, for instance, even said of her own process, "I rewrite continually, every day, over and over and over...Every day, I read from the beginning up to where I'd got to and just edit it all, and then I move on. It's incredibly laborious, and towards the end of a long novel, it's intolerable actually."
Well, I knew I didn't want to work like that, mainly because I'm lazy and have a strong aversion to anything remotely describable as agonizing. Also, I knew my own psychology. I'm a compulsive person, who always tries to do the very best, so if I had to rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, fifteen times until I could move on, I might never do so. If that's what it took to be a "real writer," I figured I wouldn't be one.
However, I discovered there were two secrets to writing (one of which I mentioned earlier).
One: there are no absolute rules.
Two: everybody does it differently.
Figuring out how you rewrite is just as important, if not more so, than figuring out how you write best. It's all a part of this strange process of becoming a writer. It's a crucial part of the process to figure out, but once you do, the doors to writing world grow exponentially wider.
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