Rewriting your novel draft – the basics
Yesterday we took a look at ways you can makes the process of writing your first draft easier and quicker. Today we turn our attention to what comes after that – rewriting your novel draft.
In many ways this is, I think, a lot harder than writing the first draft. It doesn’t really matter how awful your first draft is as long as there is a first draft. Rewriting is the bit where you have to make it not-awful, a much trickier task – particularly if the novel you’re working on is your first.
It’s important to note that there are two kinds of rewriting: structural rewrites and sentence rewriting. When it comes to rewriting your first draft, you’re probably going to be focusing more on the structural aspect of things.
This involves looking at the big issues relating to your novel, such as:
Does the plot work?
Would it be better if that bit happened before that other bit?
Would it be better from someone else’s point of view?
Does the setting (time and place) work?
Would there be more tension if Character X was related to Character Y?
Is the relationship between characters believable?
Does the story fit the genre?
Are there any gaping holes in the plot?
Is this or that scene really necessary?
Do you really need all that backstory?
You can probably tell from this list that structural rewrites can be painful. You often end up with a radically different book to the one you started with once you’re done – but it will hopefully also be a better book. In some cases, it might mean going right back to the beginning and writing the whole thing again, while in other cases you might be more focused on changing the order of events or subtly altering the way characters interact with each other.
A professional editor can also be useful for this sort of rewriting, particularly if you’re not used to the process; they should be able to identify areas of weakness and make suggestions that you can put into practice.
Then we come on to the line editing aspect of rewriting. It can be easy to focus on this aspect of the process rather than making big structural changes because it doesn’t seem quite as daunting, but it can still have a big impact on the kind of book you end up with.
It involves looking at issues such as whether your dialogue is believable, whether your sentences flow, whether your word choice is right, whether something could have more impact if you switched a few words around, your grammar and spelling and punctuation. In short, all those little things that can turn a good book into a great one.
How many rewrites your novel requires will depend on the kind of book you’ve written, how much experience you have and how many changes you’re making (and how big they are). It might well be one of the hardest aspects of writing a book, but it’s an essential one, and one that will hopefully make you a better writer as a result.
