The Art Of The The Rewrite Rewrite COLUMN BY JON GINGERICH DECEMBER 7, 2011
So you’ve written your story, mulled over its potential problems, and even had it critiqued by friends or colleagues who’ve given you their praise, suggestions and ultimate diagnoses. You You know your work has major issues that need addressed. Now what !he first draft is going to be bad. !hat’s okay. !he ine"perienced writer works on an idea, discovers it’s not working and gives up. !he e"perienced writer works on an idea, discovers it’s not working but has the faith in the story and him#herself to keep going, because he#she knows it will get better with time. $ontrary to many beginners’ opinions, stories aren’t truly born in the first draft, but through numerous, significant rewrites. %hile revision may lack the immediate romanticism of an initial draft, rewriting i s a vital part of the creative process. &ewriting is an art form unto itself' just as much discovery is involved in the process, and it can be just as inspiring and inventive as the first draft. (ny time you alter your story’s vital elements it teases your creative side to come up with ne w ideas. &ewriting can help your story become aware of itself' it can elevate an idea to its own reality. )n order for the process to work however, a true rewrite cannot simply be editing, copy*editing or proofing. ) know you+ve worked hard on it, but your first draft should be viewed as nothing more than a framework. ( true rewrite is surrender' it is a complete re*imagining of the work, usually more difficult and always more time consuming than the initial draft. )n order to produce a compelling, well*written work of fiction, the writer must wear the hats of writer, editor and audience simultaneously.. !his is more than a difficult task it’s a practically impossible undertaking. !he writer is e"pected juggle simultaneously the work, how she#he plans to change it and most importantly theories of how your imagined readership will interpret what+s been written. )t’s like putting on a pair of glasses with three lenses and being asked to navigate a dark highway. !he !he only way to rewrite successfully is to look through each lens separately and attack all elements of the story comprehensively.. !here are many ways to view a story, but when it comes to the task of rewriting )’ll suggest we divide comprehensively stories into two distinct views a -acro and -icro view and adopt an approach that addresses each. !he -acro view is your work’s overarching intent. )t’s where you establish a story’s theme, shape, scenes and structure. )t’s where you discover what your story is about,/ and who your characters are. -icro is the details0 it’s language, length, style, and grammar, it’s the sum feeling/ your -acro qualities e"emplify over the body of the work. )n some ways, both offer different views of the same components0 Structure is -acro, prose is -icro. $haracter is -acro, dialogue is -icro. !heme is -acro, imagery is -icro. -acro is a discovery process, -icro is a polishing process. -acro is where you lay the foundation for your story, -icro -icro is where you make the house presentable. !oo !o o many writers confuse these distinct disciplines and tackle one before the other is addressed. !hey tweak and retweak sentences while ignoring structural problems, and the result is a bad story that’s well*written, a piece of work that’s grammatically correct yet uninspired. )t’s the equivalent of shopping for decorative window shutters when the foundation of your house sits on a fault line. !he below four steps will hopefully help divide the tasks of rewriting into an undertaking that’s both reasonable and comprehensive. !he idea is to move your rewriting focus gradually from a -acro process to a -icro one, ensuring each area of your story is given due attention from the foundation up.
Restructuring 1ne of the best tools a writer has is time. (fter you’ve finished writing your first draft and had i t workshopped or critiqued, step away from it. 2ive yourself distance, work on something else. %hen you return to your draft with a fresh/ eye you’ll be about as objective as any creator can hope for. !hen look at it a printed copy, not a computer screen and ask what structural problems need to be addressed. %hat’s your story’s theme what are you trying to say, and are you saying anything at all %hat’s the story about 3the litmus test is you should be able to tell someone in a single sentence, with a verb4 and does it echo throughout the piece 5ow vivid is the world you’ve created &emove scenes and characters that don’t adequately resonate this theme' add subplots, foreshadowing and new characters that strengthen it. 6or the characters that remain, who are they and what do they want 7o they speak and behave with authority $an any of them be critici8ed as clich9s, or do they avoid easy characteri8ation You’ll You’ll need to walk in their shoes, discover their histories, their upbringings. )s the point*of*view a correct one, does the voice reflect the internal structure of the
story 7oes the plot make sense )t should reveal itself not in a heavy*handed manner but through a slow unfolding of character, structure and theme. !he restructuring process should be concerned entirely with -acro qualities. !his means it concerns itself less with actual writing and more with building. :eave grammar and sentences alone for the time being' right now you’re molding your story for meaning. ;hysically take a red pen to the scenes and characters that aren’t working. $ross things out, write in the margins. !hen write your new scenes and characters in a new document. %hen you’re finished, paste the new scenes into the old document, and delete the old ones. You’ll notice the shape of the story and the behavior of characters will change as they begin to move around and interact with new elements.
Revision !he operative word here is vision./ (fter more time has passed, print out your second draft and look at it again. 5ere you’ll hopefully see the li terary forest for the trees, how your ideas are linking together. -ake sure the story’s proportions and rhythms are even. )s the story revealing itself through action and dialogue instead of summary or a laundry list of descriptive details )s your central theme resonating throughout but subtle enough to avoid being overbearing !he reader’s participation makes the story. )s the beginning of the story inviting )s the ending profound 5ow can you ma"imi8e emotional intensity in the plot (dd comple"ity to your characters. (dd details that flesh out who a character is' add quirks/ that redefine them as authentic individuals instead of types. )n what ways do they contract themselves ;epper characters with subtle details that resonate on a subconscious level. 7o they have distinct ways of speaking, do they repeat specific phrases or words that are specific to them )s the overall dialogue informative but genuine Notice with this step we’re moving from a view that began as -acro and is growing increasingly -icro. %e’re mowing down, whittling from an abstract lump into a specific shape. !he revision process is concerned with building the relationships of form, style and meaning. 5ere your story is gradually accruing metaphorical weight. %hat impact does your writing style have on the story :anguage should absorb the theme of the work so you’ll want to manipulate language to match the material, but not in an overbearing way. (gain, print out your work for this process, and do your edits in longhand.
Copy editing %e’re now fully at the -icro end of the process. ;rint out your second draft and set it on your desk 3ideally, in an upright copy holder4. :ooking at your document, and with your second draft now closed and, ideally, deleted open a new document and retype the whole thing over again. !he idea is to push the document through a filtration process that focuses on language. %hen you’re forced to confront every sentence, you’ll be ama8ed at all the stuff that can go. !his is where you’ll see if your words are linking together. 6irst, make sure the words inform, if the theme takes residence in the synta". :ook at how your paragraphs transition' transitions should be subtle evolutions of an idea. 5ow does one paragraph relate to the ne"t :ook at how your sentences grow and branch within the paragraphs. 7oes every sentence sound like an organic component of the voice, almost like its writer invented it )n the copy editing process, we’re looking for the two e’s/0 what’s e"ceptional and what’s essential. 2et rid of anything that’s not the latter. 7elete incidental details. $ut redundancies. :isten to the acoustic properties your sentences have. 5ave you varied your sentence lengths, or are you delivering the same rhythms over and over again -ake sure your sentences are active. :ook out for figurative clich9, unnecessary modifiers and anything that unnecessarily pads/ the sentence. $ut until it hurts' challenge yourself to omit as many words as you can while retaining the sentence’s intended meaning. (sk yourself0 how would a first*time reader approach this sentence, this word !he editing process should not water down, the editing process should refine. )f you’re still confused as to what your story is about/ you’ll need to stop and return to the first step before proceeding.
Proofreading and line editing You should do this only after the first three steps have been accomplished, before you’re sending the story out for possible publication. &ead your story for grammar, double*check your sentences. %atch for punctuation, which gives your readers space to breathe/ between ideas. !hen, paginate your work into columns, using a program like )n7esign or
Speaking puts your work in audible spaces' it objectifies the language and places it outside the writer’s head. >oth of these methods are intended to temporarily trick/ the brain into seeing your work in a new light, to imagine your story from the perspective of a stranger. You’ll notice ) prefer an editing environment that’s as analogue/ as possible. !here’s no doubt the medium you choose to transcribe ideas 3computer, typewriter, shorthand4 irrevocably affects the written product. $omputers are great, but they’re machines of convenience' we live in an age where technologies allow us to circumvent essential parts of the editing process. You can be assured that when someone wrote a ?@@*page novel with a quill pen only the essentials remained. $omputers, while enabling us to churn out rough drafts at incredibly short intervals, have given writers diarrhea of the mind. !hey+ve allowed a lot of unneeded superlatives and afterthoughts to pass through the filtration process. -oreover, by virtue of their design they’re constantly tempting us to scroll up and change what we’ve written before moving on, so the finished product is often a messy hodgepodge of polished crap aside half*baked brilliance. )’m not suggesting writers change the transcribing medium they’re accustomed to. )nstead, my advice is to use the best of both worlds to your advantage0 use a computer to write your first drafts quickly, so you can trowel the compost of your creative mind with abandon. :et it be sloppy, let it be messy. !he rewrite however, should ideally take ten times the effort to complete. %hen switching cerebral lobes to your analytical side, switch mediums a red pen, paper to accommodate the new mental task at hand. (lways type a new draft' do your work in a new document, not an e"isting one' and don’t keep multiple drafts. %hen you force yourself into a position where every word matters, you’ll be ama8ed at the effect it will have on your final product. )deally, the rewriting process should be like wringing out a to wel, where we void the bad elements and add new ones that contribute to its ideal shape. 5ave one draft, and work it to death.