Addicted to Rewriting

Rewriting

I don't have to hold myself back from rewriting. After a certain point, rewriting is counterproductive, and amounts to stirring mud. It has about as much appeal to me as dipping my hands in honey and sticking them in a nest of fire ants.

I write it, then I go through and fix anything I can find that doesn't work, then I let it go and move on. It's been my experience that rewriting something over and over isn't likely to lead to sales, but to missed opportunities because while rewriting one thing, you aren't writing anything new.

I certainly wouldn't begin to rewrite because one agent or editor said something didn't grab him.

I'm a firm believer in Robert Heinlein's rules of writing.

HEINLEIN'S RULES FOR WRITING

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

As Heinlein and Robert J. Sawyer put it, each of these rules will lose 20% of all writers. If you start with 100 wannabe writers, 20% will not follow rule one, and so will be lost. Then 20% or the remaining writers will not follow rule two, and so will be lost. On and on.

Sawyer adds a very good sixth rule of his own. "Start working on something else."

For Robert J. Sawyer's full explanation, which should be must reading, go here: http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm

popmuze said:

But what happens when you find, once you've fixed everything that didn't work, that when you go back to it, a week or a month or a year later, there are bunches of other things that no longer seem to work as well as you might have thought they once did. It's quicksand, I know, but I guess there's something comforting about the familiar.

I should point out, I have this problem with my published work as well. One year I might re-read something and love it, a few years later I'll hate it.

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This will still happen, even if you rewrite 5,000 times. No work is ever finished, no work is ever perfect. Or that's how it's perceived by writers. As the old saying goes, and as Sawyer repeats on how website, "No story is ever finished, it is only abandoned. Learn to abandon yours."

In sixteen years, I've written exactly two short stories now that I think are as good as I can possibly write. I wouldn't change a single word in either of them. Neither did the editors. And both sold as first drafts.

And there are stories I've rewritten to death that still stink on ice.

More often than not, perceived errors aren't really errors at all. They are only writing that differs from the way you would do it now. Which will differ from the way you would do it the next time you read it, etc.

If something really is an error, an editor will point it out during the editing process, and you can fix it then.

And the simple solution to avoid seeing things you don't want to change weeks or months or years later is to not read the thing again week or months or years later.

Write the thing the best way you can. Let it sit for a month. Read it again and fix whatever you see that's wrong, then abandon it to the world of agents and editors, and don't read it again, don't rewrite it again, until and unless someone with a checkbook asks for specific changes. If it really needs changes, they will ask.

popmuze said:

I should point out, I have this problem with my published work as well. One year I might re-read something and love it, a few years later I'll hate it.

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Same here. I can't stand to look at my books for a year or two after publication, because it's painful to see things I want to change and not be able to change them. When I look at my older stuff, I often have a very mixed reaction--I'm surprised by how good some of it seems, and by how bad some of it seems.

I like rewriting too--much more than writing, actually. After a couple of whole-book overhauls I'm usually satisfied with the major structural stuff, but I could tinker forever. But eventually you just have to force yourself to stop. While I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I'm able to look at something I've written and not see things I want to change, over the years--and of necessity--I have been able to get to the point where I'm able to say "it's finished enough," and let it go. Once I do, I'm fairly impervious to others' criticism (unless of course that other is an editor), and though I'll sometimes think of something major I could have/should have done, I can usually resist the temptation to do it.

- Victoria

If you don't cut your emotional attachment, and you keep rewriting the same story over and over and over again, you'll never submit it, and you will never get it published and read.

What is art if nobody's ever going to appreciate it?

popmuze said:

Oh, I'm submitting it all the time.

But whenever it comes back I put on a fresh new coat of paint before sending it out again.

It's like welcoming back an old friend. We chat, have coffee, and I change all the dialogue.

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There are times when I'm addicted to rewriting. I love it and hate it simultaneously because it feels like I can't stop...

But like popmuze, I especially like to do it after a rejection, before sending my work back out.