Today the A to Z Challenge continues! I’ll be posting about one letter/word on every weekday in April. Don’t want the barrage of posts? Sign up for my newsletter and I’ll let you know when I start doing new stuff next month!
R is for Rewriting.
We knew we had to come to this word eventually, the same way serious writers know eventually their work must be rewritten. In most cases, it must be rewritten over and over and over again. The novella I recently submitted has been rewritten at least thirty times and was originally a short story. Moonshadow’s Guardian, the novel I’m about to start sending out, has been through over a dozen edits, most of them full rewrites.
Some writers adore rewriting. I think they’re nuts(yes, more nuts than the average writer). A handful of writers are neutral, accepting rewriting as a necessary part of the process. Most writers, at least most of the ones I’ve talked to, hate rewriting. We all know it’s necessary and we do get through it, but boy is it tough. At times during the rewriting process I really loathe both my story and myself. To be honest I’m not even really sure how I push through it, though I know the handful of writers I talk to about these things certainly help.
What I do know is that every project I work on needs a little less rewriting than the last thing I wrote and every edit brings my work that much closer to success. No matter how I feel about my books in the middle of rewriting I know I will feel better about them at the end of each rewrite. The process is painful but it’s worth it, because with every rewrite the books are closer to being what I want to send out into the world.
How do you feel about rewriting? Got any interesting tips or tricks? Let me know about them in the comments section below!
I detest rewriting, and I try to avoid it at all costs! Usually I will cut blocks of text out, paste it in another document, and then try to rework it into the manuscript in a more coherent form. Generally I manage to edit with only minimal alterations, the odd word and sentence here and there.
https://spookymrsgreen.com/2016/04/20/atozchallenge-q-is-for-questions/
Minimal edits? Lucky you. I usually have to do at least three full rewrites before I get to the “minimal editing” stage.
How I feel about rewriting depends on my mood. Sometimes I like it more than writing and other times I’d rather be writing something new.
~Ninja Minion Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
Story Dam
Patricia Lynne, Indie Author
I’d almost always rather be writing something new, but how much I like rewriting still varies a lot based on my mood, what I’m working on and how much rewriting I have to do.
Rewrites are evil! Some people call it editing, but the first pass of a new story is never as simple as editing, it’s rewriting. And it may be a necessary evil, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. 😀
Carol at My Writing Journal
Editing and rewriting are two totally different stages of preparing a novel for publication. Some people rarely have to do full rewrites though. I’m extremely jealous of those people.