How do you rewrite?

My method of rewriting. Go through and fix/change any problems that I know of and can find. Then I read through it again after a couple of weeks and see if anything jumps out at me. Then I get another person (fresh eyes) to read at least a few pages, preferably the whole thing and listen to what jumps out at them and listen to their suggestions. I keep going until I'm happy, then I start quering until I find out the script has yet more flaws that need pretty extensive rewrites, then put the script away until I'm ready to tackle it, or tackle it right then and there and if I'm happy, I keep going.

P.S. Rewriting sucks, I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil, I've been doing it for two years and I still feel like I'm doing it wrong.

Unless I know immediately after finishing writing what scenes I'll want to cut. I let it go a for a while and then reread and think after each scene can the script hold it's own without this.

hi judsia,

I've been writing for a while now and I'm working on my 5th spec (even if it's still for fun). I usually write comic stuff but I like going for dramatic and action content every now and then.

The way I do things is that I'm always rewriting. I rewrite and even polish the script as I go along. I try to go for the punch line as much as I can and I want things to be as tight and precise as they possibly can so I'm always reading, rereading, writing, rewriting and polishing. That's why I'm a super slow writer, 4-5 pages every week or two.

I prefer this to a complete rewrite of the script once it's done because that means you're gonna need another good idea to fill in the blank if you wanna erase a scene or something. I hope this helps.

Judsia said:

Icerose,

And here I thought writing the first draft was hard...Silly me

CR

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Heh, I know what you mean. There are times I delay finishing a piece simply because I don't want to start the editing stage.

I know this will be considered an awful amount of work for some people, but my method both for tricky scenes and for rewriting many scenes is to actually draw a thumbnail storyboard of those scenes and sequences. By playing director, I can actually discover staging problems, problems with hookups, and also (more importantly) discover many places where dialogue can be replaced by action, and also where perhaps an additonal short transition scene or action will help the flow. I also find myself making many minor adjustments to dialogue after doing this, since I can more easily picture the flow of dialogue and revise it to be more natural. This doesn't mean that I insert camera instructions into the script. But somehow I think that my doing it this way will help the actors and director to more easily envision the action the way I do.

I usually write the whole first draft and then use the storyboarding to improve scenes. But there are times when I use it in the middle of the first draft.

I work mostly in animation, so my thumbnails sometimes make their way to the storyboard artist as 'suggestions'. But I recently used this technique for a live action TV show pilot, and it really helped smooth out some issues in the draft.

To me, the greatest challenge of writing scripts is to translate my visual image into a document of pure words. So jotting it down as a visual image just makes sense. You don't need to draw well. Stick figures and shapes are good enough.

Judsia,

Here are a few articles about rewriting that might be of some use to you.

One.
Two.
Three.

All the best.

Raghu.

Judsia said:

Hi! I'm new to the forum. I finished my script a few days ago and started on the rewrite. I knew when I finished the first draft there were going to be scenes that absolutely had to be cut or the dialogue had to be cleaner.

I know we're supposed to be objective when rewriting, but what is your method of doing it? I feel like I'm not doing something right....

CR

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Here's what I've really found about re-writing -- especially about showing your work to other people and getting feedback, most of the time.

Most of the time, people will tell you to fix stuff that you really knew need fixing all along.

When we're honest with ourselves, as we're writing, we almost always will hit these points, when we say -- hmm, what now? How do I get from here to there? How do I solve this story problem? How do I get him out of this mess? Or we realize that -- oops, this doesn't quite make sense in terms of that -- and we can't quite figure out how to fix it.

And we say to ourselves -- oh, hell, look at all the other movies out there with problems that are just as big and they work fine.

Let's just leave it maybe nobody will notice. Or maybe they'll read it and they won't think it's a problem. Maybe, in fact, they'll love it. I'm just being hypercritical here.

Or else we hit some patch and it's not what you'd call terrible, but neither is it what you'd call exactly great. But really, so what? It's not like every scene has to be great. It'll do. It'll get you by. And after all, a great scene is coming up. And a few scenes ago, there was a great scene. So what if this scene is just sort of getting us through? It'll carry the water through to that great scene that's coming up.

This is what is known as -- kidding yourself.

And we pretty much all do it. And the well of hope that nobody will notice that material that isn't quite up to snuff will never run dry.

But I can't tell you how many times someone has read something of mine and said, "You know, this scene or having them do this or that -- it doesn't really work," -- and then a light goes off and I flash back to the time that I wrote and I remember that, "Well, maybe no one will notice," thought running through my head.

And it's like, "Damn, caught again."

In the end, if every scene and every story decision isn't as strong as it can be -- and by that I mean -- if someone nails you and demands that you step up and justify why you made the decision to do it exactly that way and not some other better way -- then you need to be asking exactly that question.

Is this scene as strong as it can be? Is this story decision -- the complication, the twist, the set-up, the way in which I've presented the exposition, whatever it is -- is it as strong as it can be?

You have an opening that's a certain way -- could it be a completely different way. You introduce characters in a certain way -- could you introduce them in a completely different way. Maybe a better way.

Look at every single scene and ask the key question -- do I even need this scene at all? What's in it that I need? Is that "thing" already somewhere else? Or if it's a lot of pages for a very small amount of story content, can I shift that story content somewhere else and save the pages? Does the scene "earn" its share of pages? Is it a dramatically unimportant scene that takes a lot of pages?

When you have subjected your script to that kind of analysis, tested every scene and story decision in that way -- that's what's knows as a real rewrite. Not just going through and tinkering -- snipping here and there -- but getting down to the basics, to the muscle and bone of how to make your story work better and building it up again.

Then you will have what is known as a "bullet-proof" draft.

NMS

nmstevens said:

When you have subjected your script to that kind of analysis, tested every scene and story decision in that way -- that's what's knows as a real rewrite. Not just going through and tinkering -- snipping here and there -- but getting down to the basics, to the muscle and bone of how to make your story work better and building it up again.

Then you will have what is known as a "bullet-proof" draft.

NMS

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I agree with nmstevens except I don't think you can do all this by yourself especially if you're a new writer. Before trying to polish everything up, consider giving it to a professional reader. You might get feedback that makes sense and then decide to make huge changes.
Sometimes it's not just a matter of which scenes work but a matter of tone. Your entire way of looking at your story might be too timid or superficial -it happens to the best.- You might need someone else to challenge you to go deeper. THEN you can edit yourself. The question when you finish the first draft is: does my premise come through? Is it strong enough? Is this the story I am really trying to tell or are the seeds of an even better story still hidden?
I think that's where most of the work is.