Write Better: Tips and tricks

Rewrite from scratch

Every so often I see some advice tossed around that's equally dangerous and wise. One of those comments is an often unexplained, matter-of-fact:

"You finished your first draft? Good. Now rewrite your novel from scratch."

I've seen this advice doled out upon fantastic writers by other writers who never even glanced at the work in question and I just want to scream "NO. This is not the automatic next step!"

What works for one writer is not always what works for another. If you want proof of this, go ask how novels should be drafted and, if that involves outlining, how. Writers do not all work the same. We all manage to get words on the page, but our methods vary.

Rewriting from scratch is nice and can work for some writers (in fact, it does!), but depending on the quality of the story and the draft, it isn't always necessary and may be more of a time waste than a helpful suggestion. It depends on the writer, the draft, and the needs of the story.

Go to your favorite genre on wattpad. You'll find hundreds of drafts from inexperienced writers, and even a few from experienced writers. Read enough of them and you'll quickly realize that some first drafts are better than others.

Note: If you want an easy comparison, as of September 15th, my novel Dark Side is still in first draft format. Reference that. It's better than some first drafts, and far worse than others.

If you're still unsure what I mean, go check out a kid's sports team. Baseball, basketball, cheerleading, ballet- if you watch the class or practice you might see that some kids are just at different stages and have different needs because of it. There are benchwarmers like me, stars, and those kids in between that fill in the gaps.

Very often even great drafts receive heavy edits, but for many of them it's not a matter of pressing the delete key and returning to page one.

Editing is a form of rewriting. Chances are, even if you re-write from scratch, you'll still have to edit after.

If you're good at editing or have good editors, you don't always need to re-write from scratch. You can wipe out entire scenes and chapters and pages of manuscript and re-write or toss them into oblivion. You may re-write the important chapter one five times or fool around with different prologues. You can think about sentence arrangements and dialogue and thoughts and actions and character motivation and change around what you've got.

As long as you aren't afraid to do the dirty work and have the open mind to change your writing, you can work within your draft to make the second draft a major improvement.

I've seen writers who spend a very long time working on their first drafts. I've seen experienced writers and even some inexperienced writers who have an excellent grasp on language and their first draft is infinitely better than some writers' third drafts. The product they produce is at a different stage of development and need. It's not perfect, but it's workable.

We're all different. For instance, I breeze through, and in my edits I know what needs to be changed and expanded. Sometimes in my drafts, I write the basic needs knowing I'll alter it later [like with Run Cold, I may say to myself: that description of Svalbard looks fine, but when I edit, I'll add in specific geographical details to make it realistic). Other writers will sit there and get it right the first time.

Still, rewriting is something that you can and may need to.

When do I need to rewrite?

1. If it would take you more time to correct all the mistakes than it would to start over. I've seen some stories that use hardly any punctuation, no capital letters, and dozens of typos. The time it takes you to click and backspace and insert commas and start your sentences with a capital....Well, you could probably have re-typed the sentence (with the new changes and story lines) in that time frame.

At least for me, when I've written myself into holes here and there, I can type a new sentence quicker than I can click and change two or three elements of it. [Then again, I was trained to type quickly, so I'm a little speedier with the keyboard than average. ]

2. If the story has major issues (such as plot holes) where the entire direction is altered after that point on and you find that everything (or close to it) has to be changed in order to fall in line with the repair.  Again, this is a case where you can probably just re-write it to suit your needs vs sit there trying to figure out what and how to change chapter ten. In that case, it may be beneficial to keep your first draft for reflection or ideas and just re-write it with absolute freedom (rather than worrying about how to work around Sir McKinney's dialogue that you love so much).

In the end, it's all a matter of choice. There are good reasons to rewrite, and good reasons to go with what you have.

Do feel free to try both methods. Writing is about trial and error. It's about taking risks, discovering what works for you and what doesn't!