Rewriting

[Helen]

I´m rewriting and editing my first book that I never published. It needs a lot of work. The basic story is great, but I´m not feeling it when I read it. It jumps around too much and it feels as if I ought to delete the first 5 chapters or so. If I do, I will have to rewrite and rethink several things that are important to the story further along.
Does anyone have experience with this? How do you get the feel for your old characters? How do clean up your much loved, but messy story?

[C.]

Hello Helen,
You certainly can rewrite, but you can't edit it. A writer simply can't find their own mistakes. It's something about how the mind works, but the bottom line is that if you are not 100% thrilled with the work there will be issues with your readers. Much of it falls into the category of reader distraction.

Find the masters of your genre and use their works as standards as you rewrite. When the rewrite is complete and you're 100% satisfied find an editor that doesn't charge a nickel a word. They're out there, but you need to look for them.

ScaryBob

[Dwayne]

Helen wrote: "How do you get the feel for your old characters? How do clean up your much loved, but messy story?"

I dust off old stuff all the time and rework it. I never seem to lose "the feel" for old characters, if I catch your drift. Many major characters have been worked to the point where they feel like old friends or family.

As for cleaning up a messy story, it is hard to give advice when I can't see your story and every one of mine I've cleaned up has had different issues. With me, the worst habit I have when writing is that I fall so in love with the characters that I write a lot of needless scenes just to see what they will do. Those have to go, of course, from the finished product. Basically, anything that is not moving the story forward or developing character needs to go.

Maybe this will help. My family and I used to vacation in the Ozarks back in the 70s and 80s. We were watching a man make a totem pole out of a tree one time and he said the secret to making a totem pole is to cut away everything that doesn't look like a totem pole.

So, you have a bunch of pages with a bunch of words. You just need to take out the words that are not your story and add in the missing ones.

[Helen]

Thank you Dwayne!

I love your Totem Pole analogy, that is exactly what I need to do. Thank you.

I have one major scene, several chapters actually, that seems like unnecessary filler. The problem is that is has enough of totem pole within it that will be important later. I could keep it, but it doesn´t really go with the rest of the story.

Much to think about :)

ScaryBob, Thank you for your advice, I will definitely get an editor later on, but my work is not ready for that yet.

[Jim]

Helen wrote: "Thank you Dwayne!

I love your Totem Pole analogy, that is exactly what I need to do. Thank you.

I have one major scene, several chapters actually, that seems like unnecessary filler. The problem..."

Helen,

A professional conceptual (developmental) editor will provide some very sound advice regarding which specific areas of your work could be improved upon, polished, re-written, or even eliminated altogether. Accept the advice with an open mind, act upon that with which you agree completely and partially react to that with which you only partially agree.

It is often difficult to accept even constructive criticism of something to which you have devoted much time and effort, but sometimes others have experience and insight which we lack and are viewing the work with no built-in bias. That said; occasionally an author's instinct trumps experience and insight, so never underestimate the value of that little voice inside your head that sometimes advises you to leave something just the way it is.

I wish you success.

[Abigail]

If you feel scenes are unnecessary, delete them. It will be hard. It will physically and emotionally hurt. But your story will be better for it.

[R.F.G.]

Helen,

Make a copy of the file, call it Name-goes-here-v2.

Go into your copy and gut everything that doesn't feel like it fits, then read it. You might find yourself putting some things back, or not.

Finish writing the story and see how the whole thing flows.

If you have an alpha-reader or two let them tell you what they think then.

[[deleted user]]

I'm getting ready to publish the 2nd edition of my first novel. I've cut about 6000 words from the first third of it to improve pacing, and added 6000 in new scenes that better relate to the story, including two brand new chapters up front. It really does hurt to cut paragraphs, shorten, or even cut entire scenes, but I can see a dramatic improvement. You do have to be ruthless.

[Brenda]

You don't have to delete things for ever, you know. Cut them from the text, and paste them into another file. It is comforting, to know they're not gone forever, and if you change your mind you can always fish them back out again. Maybe they really need to go in 23 pages further along, right?

I am a big fan of making things as snappy and short as possible. Nobody writes novels the way Victor Hugo did any more, with an entire chapter to simply describe the sewers of Paris. If it -can- be cut, it should be cut.

Another way to think of it is, a novel should not be like a train. You can take a couple cars out of a train, hook the thing back up, and it'll still roll down the tracks fine. A novel should be like one of those Chinese wooden puzzles, the ball or the elephant. All the pieces fit tightly together and hook up. If you are missing one, it falls apart. Every part is essential.

[[deleted user]]

Brenda wrote: "You don't have to delete things for ever, you know. Cut them from the text, and paste them into another file. It is comforting, to know they're not gone forever, and if you change your mind you can..."

It would be far more painful if I didn't keep a copy of the first edition. If we go too far, we can always go back.

[K.P.]

make another file [novel name - cuts] and put in the deleted scenes as you trim the manuscript. focus on one thing at a time. is it pacing? is it dialogue? is it jumping too many scenes? discovered a major plot hole? sometimes i read chapters out of order to find some things missing. its not unusual for me to have 100 or so pages of deletes scenes. most never get used. very few are recycled. rewriting sucks but the trade off is a tighter story. your umpteenth draft should be better than the first! unless you gut too much... (the latest book im working on i focused too much on speeding up the pace that i deleted the backstory that gave characters life/reason to do stuff). have another set of eyes go over it when you're done. you can be too close and can't see what needs to be fixed

[Helen]

Thank you so much everyone.
You all give great advice and excellent suggestions.

[Theresa]

I am in the midst of reworking the end of chapter 2/beginning of chapter 3 in my 2nd book. I realized some stuff needed to be moved or removed to make room for a scene that hightlights the connection between two important characters.

It is hard work, and consisted of cutting and pasting a portion of what needed to be moved to another document for safekeeping until I am ready for it.

[K.D.]

I had a book on the back burner for years. I had finished the first draft in first person. When I revisited it recently, it didn't read well. So, I rewrote the whole thing in third person. It wasnt easy, but was definitely the right decision.

[K.P.]

i did that before kd. at least you had 1 to work with. i had 4 O_o