Re-writing a draft before you finish it

[Kosh]

I started doing this with the current draft of my current script. I usually say I'll get something in the next rewrite, but little things just keep bugging me. So I'm going back and making sure all the scenes I've previously wrote are up to par before finishing the last act of my script. This could be my self-sabotage side creeping in, but I do like what I've rewritten and the story is one I really think should be produced.

Re-writing while writing, yay or nay?

[icerose]

If it's progress stopping problem, then yeah, I will do the rewrite. If it's just normal stuff, I make notes and keep going.

[mario_c]

If it needs to be rewritten, why not? When I get a block I tend to do a lot of proofreading :) My script is almost done, but I'm thinking of changing the locale of act one (there's sort of a fugitive on the run theme in the story). It has to be right, so rewrite the damn thing.

[WMcQuaig]

I'm with Icerose on this one. If I get to a point where I can't come up with anything anymore then I will rewrite, really just go back figure out where I feel the story started veering off course. Only then will I start the rewrite early. But If I write something that I feel might get changed later, I'll make a mental note and move on.

I can agree with Mario_C that it has to be right, but if you're constantly going back and redoing things you'll never finish.

[Enzo]

I would continue to the end - unless of course the problem is so serious that I just can't continue.
It's not a zero-sum thing, if you have a problem, you solve it the best way you can.

[nmstevens]

I started doing this with the current draft of my current script. I usually say I'll get something in the next rewrite, but little things just keep bugging me. So I'm going back and making sure all the scenes I've previously wrote are up to par before finishing the last act of my script. This could be my self-sabotage side creeping in, but I do like what I've rewritten and the story is one I really think should be produced.

Re-writing while writing, yay or nay?

I find that I tend to rewrite as I go. My sense is that later acts and sequences are built, foundationally, on earlier ones, so if the earlier ones aren't right -- if things haven't been set up, if I realize later that I want something to go in a different direction, I find that I can't move ahead knowing that the proper set-up -- the proper foundation -- hasn't been laid for what I'm writing.

I need to go back and make sure that the foundation is there, and that it's right before I can go forward and take the script where I want to take it, because often when you go back and change one thing, for the purposes of that later alteration, it inevitably changes other things and those things have to be shaken through the script.

If you ignore stuff like that, or just make a note somewhere and carry through to the end of the script, what you end up with is not really a finished draft but a kind of chimera that has the front end of one version of the movie and the back end of another. Then you have to go back to the beginning and start doing the surgery you need to make the front fit the revised back.

Only by then, those little notes that you thought at the time were so clear, all of a sudden you find yourself saying -- what the hell does this mean, what was I thinking? What was I trying to say?

On the other hand, if you do the fixes at the time - when you're right in the middle of making the initial change, you know exactly what you're thinking, exactly what the issues are, because you're right in the midst of hammering out the story problem and working out all of its various implications. A couple months later, those issues may be a dim and distant memory and you have to try to get your mind back to where it was and piece it all together -- now what was it I needed to change in Act One -- I know I wanted to do this, and that -- but wasn't there something else? Didn't I make a note about it, or didn't it just seem so obvious I was sure I wasn't going to forget.

So as I rule, if I think something needs fixing or cleaning up -- I try to do it as I go. That doesn't mean that when I have a finished script and go back over it, that it may not need a rewrite -- but at that point, I'm addressing the question of a rewrite in respect to a document that's a cohesive whole.

It may be a cohesive whole that hasn't solved all its problems optimally, or that may need a different approach to something, or may have all sorts of other problems, but it will still make sense when you read it from beginning to end.

NMS

[icerose]

Your example is what I consider progress stopping, NMS. What I was referring to notes is like a character name change, or location change, or things that aren't intricate to the story line, or that I need to weave in this piece or that.

[nmstevens]

Your example is what I consider progress stopping, NMS. What I was referring to notes is like a character name change, or location change, or things that aren't intricate to the story line, or that I need to weave in this piece or that.

But just as matter of curiosity -- because I've also made those kinds of changes as well -- if you're half way through and you decide that you want to change a character's name or you want to change a location, do you simply continue through the draft with the old name or the old location and then wait until the next draft and then do a global search and replace?

Why not just do it now as opposed to later? It only takes a few minutes.

I mean on one level it's just a way of working and one way is as good as another if it ends up with a decent script.

The thing is, once I walk out the door of my house and start going somewhere, if I realize I've left something behind, I hate like hell to have to go back, even if it's only half a block, and then start again and I'm just wondering if it's that kind of thing for many writers -- that once you start writing there's a sense that you need to keep on going to the end and that having to stop and go back is a kind of momentum breaker and you don't really want to do it unless you absolutely have to.

NMS

[icerose]

Editing too many things for me is definitely a momentum breaker so I try not to. As for the examples I probably used lousy ones. I generally do a find and replace and make a note to keep an eye out just in case I missed any. But there are things I will do notations and go back later because they will break my momentum.

Biggest ones are items that need extra research that I didn't realize before I started then I will do the research after I've gotten the story on paper.

[Kosh]

Thanks you, everyone, for your advice. I went back and edited a few things and it helped me move forward.

[WMcQuaig]

I can agree that momentum doesn't need to be broken, because sometimes that can mean the difference between finishing on time and finishing late. Things like character name changes, dialogue rewording, scene expansion or compression, things like that I wait until the end for.

But if I'm structurally, or plot-wise, going down a road I'm not sure about I will either stop and do research to figure out if the road I'm on is worth traveling or if I need to go back and take that last left turn.

I tend to not worry about the little things cause those are easy to fix. Granted, ya it would only take a few minutes to fix it but at the same time if I can devote that extra few minutes to a bigger issue; I will because that extra few minutes could help me figure out something I was missing.

[mario_c]

Ditto with maintaining momentum. I love when you're on a roll and cranking out the pages (as I was earlier tonight...:D) but eventually you crash. This is when I review my accomplishments, meager as they may be, and tighten and fix errors and make sure characters have the same name all the way through (I've made it clear elsewhere in SS&S what a pain in the ass I am about that) and this gives me the spark to get back on and push the thing to the end. Oh, and I try to figure out where the acts start and end along the way :rolleyes:

[David Wisehart]

I constantly re-write as I go. My first full drafts are fairly polished.

[ricetalks]

I re-write as I go. Often, I will pick up the script, go to a coffee shop and re-read the whole thing from the first page to the last page I wrote when I was writing last, scribbling changes and notes as I go. When I hit that last page I start writing the next scene by hand quickly outlining it and writing down sections of the scene that are clear. (Dialogue, etc.) The I go home and start writing, first with the changes that I have been outlining and scribbling in, from beginning to last, and then continue writing the new screen quickly when I finally hit that. And then the next day start again, re-reading the scene that was written the day before, looking to cut the dialogue and scene down where ever I can and plot out the next scene.