Well here I am, sat by myself in the back room, working my way through another rewrite. It’s a solitary life, this writing lark. Why, if I didn’t have you, dear blog readers, I think I’d go quite, quite mad.
Actually, I’m finished the bulk of my rewrite, and am now doing the twiddly bits. Basically I’m going through the thing, line by line, and making adjustments no-one will ever notice but me. Removing a word here, restructuring a sentence there – little things, but they all help to make the finished book read as smoothly as possible.
Someone asked me the other day what I prefer – writing a first draft, or doing rewrites. It’s a tricky one to call.
On the one hand, writing a first draft of anything is hard. You have so many ideas whizzing around in your head, and – in my case – only the vaguest of outlines to guide you. Writing a first draft is exciting, terrifying and frustrating in equal measures. For those new to writing, getting to the end of draft one is a massive achievement. Even for those who have been doing this for a while, it’s a huge occasion when you finally reach that final paragraph.
But then the work begins. The first draft is called the first draft for a very good reason. You’ll note it’s not called the last draft.
Where a first draft is often fuelled by passion, subsequent drafts have to be guided by common sense and logic. That scene you thought was brilliant when you were writing it? It doesn’t further the story, so it needs to go. That character you fell in love with? They’re inconsequential to the plot, so they must DIE BY YOUR HAND!
While I do enjoy the process of writing a first draft, I think overall I enjoy rewriting more. It’s only in the rewriting stage you get to see your vision coming closer to being a reality. It’ll likely never be as good as it was when it was in your head, but after 10-20 rewrites, it might at least be somewhere close.
I’m not sure what draft this is I’m working on. It says Draft 4 on it, but – like software updates – between this and draft 3 there were any number of three-point-something revisions. If we were to count all the times I opened the document and made some change – however minor – this would be well over draft one hundred.
And now I really should get back to it. Those twiddly bits aren’t going to twiddle themselves.
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Written by Barry
Topics: Books