The Importance of Rewriting

The words poured effortlessly from my fingertips and onto the page completely free of grammatical errors and typos, forming a perfect, succinct, and intriguing story that everyone in the world wanted to read…said no author ever. Rewriting and editing comes with the job and there’s absolutely no way around it, but luckily there are ways to make it less painful. 

Since finishing The Nightmare Birds, I’ve already re-read the entire thing a half dozen times on my laptop, then another two times printed out, then passed it off to a few beta readers, re-read it again, and then sent it off to my editors for a final polish. When I get it back, I'll have more editing, more rewriting. Then, there will be another reading or two printed out and then a final arc read through. It takes forever and is incredibly tedious, but it’s well worth it, especially if you compare what you originally wrote to the final thing. Just take a look at this massacred page from one of my Strange Luck edits.

My first drafts are terrible. They’re slow and peppered with lots of unnecessary scenes and words. I also have a tendency to think a particular word, but type a similar sounding word with a completely different meaning instead. It's super fun going back and finding those (*eye roll). The worst is when you think you’ve finally tamed the beast, but you open the Word doc to find it covered in red. 

 

If there’s one piece of solid gold advice I’ve learned from rewriting and editing over the years it’s this: TAKE BREAKS FROM YOUR STORY. As soon as it starts to feel like “work,” becomes boring, you stop looking forward to working on it, things stop making sense, and/or you begin losing track of important details (dates, ages, hair color, etc.), then it’s time to put the manuscript down and walk away. I know it may seem counter-intuitive because you’re in “the zone,” but trust me, you’ll end up doing more harm than good. I’ve had to force myself to walk away from The Nightmare Birds probably a dozen times to recollect myself. Sometimes it was for a few days, other times a few weeks. This has meant pushing back my launch date, which has really sucked, but I'd rather have a well-written book that comes out a little later than a garbled, incoherent story.

Even if you're not experiencing any of the symptoms above, YOU STILL NEED TO TAKE BREAKS from your work. Only you will know when and for how long. Just make sure it's at least a few times.

This is totally me. :P

Why get up and walk away? Because you'll be able to look at your story with fresh eyes. Taking a break also rekindles the passion for your story and characters. It took me a long time to implement this practice, even after I had read Neil Gaiman’s quote when I first started writing seriously:

“The best advice I can give on this is, once it's done, to put it away until you can read it with new eyes. Finish the short story, print it out, then put it in a drawer and write other things. When you're ready, pick it up and read it, as if you've never read it before. If there are things you aren't satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a writer: that's revision.”

Walking away is one of the most critical things you can do as a writer, but it's not to say that you shouldn't write at all, just go write something else. Anything else. Your characters will still be there when you return. Your lumpy desk chair will still be there when you return. Your keyboard peppered with food crumbs will still there. I promise. The point is that you need to clear your head so that when you return you'll be at your absolute best.

How do you handle edits? How painful is rewriting for you? Share your tips, tricks, and advice below.

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Planning Your Novel, Part 1: Let the Journey Begin

The writing world can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate, so it’s important to get your head straight first. There isn’t a single path or author playbook that you need to follow. It’s all about exploring the diversity of options out there and doing what works best for you. I hope that the below tips (based on author interviews, books about writing, and my own experiences) will help you on your writing journey. 

Finding Your Voice: Your voice, style, and ideas are your own. Set yourself apart by being yourself and owning it; otherwise, you’re just another name in a sea of names. Perhaps fantasy author Neil Gaiman said it best: “The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that’s not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we’ve sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision.” Way to go, Neil!

Don't Follow Marketing Trends: It’s tempting. You think, well if so-and-so made a million dollars writing a book about a zombie who falls in love with a vampire, then so can I. The truth is that by the time your book is ready, the trend will likely have passed. Also, think of all the other writers who are thinking the same thing. Write the story you have to tell, not the story you think you should tell.

Panster vs. Plotter: You can really drive yourself crazy reading all of the different writing blogs and message boards weighing in on whether to outline, plot everything in advance, or just write and edit as you go. Remember, there is no single path to writing a book. Experiment and do what works best for you. When I first started writing, I thought I needed to be a plotter and followed tedious guidelines. Not only did I felt trapped, my creativity suffered. After more trial and error, I finally embraced my “pansterness,” and found a method that worked for me. 

Get Feedback: One of the most important things you can do is share your work with others. This can be in the form of talking about plot ideas over coffee, or simply giving a trusted friend your first chapter to read. Something might sound great in your head, but in reality it might not work. There is a fine line though of not letting others’ opinions influence you too much. Maintaining your own voice is key. Also, be prepared for feedback. No piece of literature is universally loved. Nearly every person, be it a friend, family member, editor, or agent, will have a different opinion of your work. It’s your job to recognize recurring issues and make changes if you believe they’re valid. There's also the possibility the everyone will only give you positive feedback. Although this certainly can boost your ego, it's more likely that your friends and family are just being nice and/or they don't have a critical editing eye. Branch out to beta readers, freelance editors, and online or local writing groups. Critical feedback is worth its weight in gold. 

Grammar School: When you’re so enraptured in your own work, it’s easy to miss something. Even the best, highest grossing books have typos. Be sure to turn on all of the spelling and grammar functions in Word and go through each flagged item carefully. Feeling rusty? Pick up a book on editing techniques or download an app to strengthen your skills. Printing out your work and going through it with a pen is another valuable technique because it gives you an opportunity to see the story in another way. Have others read your work. When you feel your book is completely polished, hand it over to a professional editor.

Remember The 3-Dimension People: It’s easy to sit too long at a desk and forget to get outside and be with the 3-dimension people. Giving your brain a chance to relax not only recharges you, but can also lead to unexpected creativity.

To Fix or Abandon: Sometimes, a story just doesn’t work. You can spend an ungodly amount of time trying to fix something that you end up destroying even more every time you touch it, or you can abandon it and start from scratch. This is one of the most difficult decisions a writer can make, but it’s better to have a well-written story that works, rather than a pieced together mess. I can definitely relate to this point after having an agent ask me to rework my first novel. It took me six months and I re-submitted with the changes. She said I was on the right track, but asked me to change major parts of the story (e.g. the era). Again, I rewrote and re-submitted. The result? I hated the changes because the story wasn’t even my story anymore. It was an abomination. I knew it, the agent knew it. So, after much anguish, I decided to abandon the project completely. The upside? That experience not only helped me find my voice in writing a new novel (Strange Luck), it allowed me to focus on the story I needed to tell.

And now I leave you with an inspirational quote from my favorite author, Henry David Thoreau: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you imagined.” 

What are you waiting for? Get out there and write!

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