The Rewritepocalypse comes… Stage 1 in motion

I used to talk about #Rewritepocalypse on Twitter a lot. It seems appropriate for how my process works, and I wonder why I stopped talking about it. I originally said it as a joke but then when I really started thinking about it, I liked the label. It really fits what I go through during revisions, and incredible strain rewriting the messy zero drafts I have put on me. Maybe it’s not that way for everyone. For me, I fly through zero drafts, and then I’ll spend months revising and polishing that draft into something intelligible. In fact, in this last week, I realized that i really only write NEW stuff from about September to December. The rest of the year is all rewrites and revisions and edits. Crazy, huh?

Anyway, I just started a rewrite on a YA I wrote a couple years ago, since I need The Iron Legacy to sit for a bit before I go back and rewrite that book again. Full Circle was the story of an elemental cage fighter learning how to be civilized again. At least, that’s what I know now. When I tackled the synopsis, I discovered a HUGE plot hole, like tank-sized.  It’s surprising that I didn’t see it before.

So I started the rewrite process.

And it is a process. A loooooong one. At least for me.

Some authors like to make one pass and that’s it for the revision phase. Some make seven or eight. I’ve done both. Neither worked for me. And I either abandoned the story or I had to go back and do it again. Of course, it used to be never the same process twice with me, neither in writing the original draft or getting it polished and ready to catch an agent’s eye. There was always a different way I went about it. But then one day, I sat down and dissected the way I rewrite things and whether I do it chaotically or have structure to my madness, I discovered that the bare bones of my process are always the same. Yay for me.

My process

I always make three passes, or to go along with my world-end-rocks-fall-everybody-dies theme, Stages. Stage 1 is all about just making notes and comments, using the Track Changes feature in Word to cut down on paper costs. However, sometimes, I have to print it out. I highlight sections that aren’t right or confuse me when I read through. I make notes on where I’d like to insert a scene and I note my story structure. And I’ve got a very basic story structure too that I’ve always followed instinctively, even when I didn’t know what it was. All my stories seem to follow this pattern and honestly, most published works can fall into this too. I’ve seen it repeated a lot, all over the web. Look:

Inciting Incident - the point where the story starts moving forward.

Crisis #1 – Around this point, I introduce the subplots too, and mark those as well.

Crisis #2 – Taking the conflict up a step, maybe complicate it with a new love interest or something.

Crisis #3 - Each crisis elevates the stakes in a way that keeps your readers turning the pages, with Crisis #3 being the one that your MC makes at possibly the lowest point in their journey.

The Cheesy Showdown – this speaks for itself.

Resolution – Always make sure you tie up all loose ends, including subplots.

I mark all of these points during the first pass. If I don’t have them, I know something is wrong, fundamentally with the story. I also mark every awkward sentence but I do not change anything yet. The first pass is all about finding the issues, and identifying them. Once that’s done, I print out one of Excel spreadsheets with my story arc worksheet and fill it in. I’m a visual person so it works for me to see my story mapped out and that’s essentially what I do. For each point of my story, I write a short one liner of the plot point.  Then I write one for each chapter. (I always have 20 chapters. It helps with pacing.) This also helps me when it’s synopsis time because I haven’t yet figured out how to write a synopsis before the story is written.

Once all that is done, I’m ready to begin Stage 2: Live or Die Time, followed at some point by Stage 3: The Committal. Stage 2 is when the bulk of the rewrite is done. And once all that’s done, Stage 3 is where I print it out and go through it on hard-copy. Stage 3 is basically the clean up of the manuscript, in which I learn if the story is really worth salvaging or if I’ve made a complete mess of it. That’s only happened once…where I made a mess of it. Usually, it turns out pretty darn good.

But I’ll discuss Stage 2 and 3 another day. I have a manuscript that needs my help right now.

So how do you like to tackle your revisions? Is it sort of like my Rewritepocalypse? Or is it much more organized and easy? Share some of your tips in the comments!