Rewriting from memory

Solatium · Feb 26, 2007

Well, do you do it?

I have -- once. Some time back I was remembering a story I wrote in my teens. Couldn't find a copy of the original, so, after a few false starts, I wrote the thing out again, keeping the main imagery and as much of the phrasing as I could remember, but adding a more logical structure and a better ending. After a lot of revising, I got it in pretty good shape -- probably better than it would be if I had begun with the text of the original draft. (If you're really interested in the specifics, see the next-to-last draft and the end of this post.)

But I recently tried to rewrite another story from memory. While I remembered a few phrases and the general thrust of the thing, I couldn't reproduce the structure as I remembered it, and I stopped halfway through. I finally turned up my old first draft, and it really was better than my attempt at recreating the same story.

And now I find myself in the same situtation: an outline and a couple of pages of manuscript have disappeared into the ether (I'm awfully disorganized, if you couldn't tell), and I'm afraid I'll butcher the story if I try to write it again.

Would you deliberately rewrite a flawed or unfinished story without reference to the original? What about a more developed story whose original was lost? What are the benefits/drawbacks of this approach?

I have two problems with it: First, I write lazily and without thought. I feel like rewriting is an imposition -- I have to do all this work again? Second, vivid phrases from the earlier version stick out in my head, and even if I feel the story is moving in a new direction, I try to force them in.

Thoughts? Experiences? Advice?

---

Appendix: What I Told My Creative Writing Teacher About The Cavern of the Yeth Mai

I wrote the earliest version when I was about seventeen, and intended it as a direct rip-off of the imagery in The Colour Out of Space. The first draft was seriously underdeveloped. The relationship between the Yeth Mai (not yet called that) and the orange markings did not exist; they were seperate images, and images only. The long-term nature of Ian's project was not established; the narrator was an unnamed, uncharacterized male; and both he and Ian existed in a sort of social vacuum, having no apparent friends or contacts except for the other. The story was unfinished, too: it ended with ". . . and Ian was not inside!"

The_Grand_Duchess · Feb 26, 2007

I wouldn't do it unless I was trashing the whole first effort and only keeping the chars and place setting. A rewrite inplies that I'm keeping the same basic story, just making it better. I would refernace my orginal if possible (which it wasn't in your orginal example) otherwise you run the risk of compeltly losing whatever story you were trying to tell in the first place.

Thats just my opnion though.

PeeDee · Feb 26, 2007

I've done it a couple of times, when I've lost stories that I thought were worth saving (through computer glitches or flooding in the basement, for example). Both times, the story comes out better because mostly what you remember are the interesting bits, the bits that really stuck with you. And because you can get impatient doing it ('cause you already WROTE the story, damn it) you can automatically eschew surplusage nicely. You get a tighter story for it.

When typing handwritten-into-the-computer, which is like going from draft to draft for me, I won't always follow it word for word, but generally I come pretty close.

Penguin Queen · Feb 27, 2007

Apparently Ephraim Lessing (great German 18th C playwright) re-wrote the whole of his masterpiece "Nathan the Wise" after his cat had shredded the first draft!

WHen I was in my teens I lost the exercise books I was writing a novel in at the time, with baout 5 chapters' worth of stuff in, & had to start again from scratch. The second time round, it was a lot more detailed & thorught through.

I did though write a rather good short story about 15 years ago on the typewriter, & lost the only copy of it I had, and Ive since tried a few times to rewrite it, but I just can't do it again.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 28, 2007

Memory

I habitually throw away all my unsold stories every so often, and any stories I think are simply bad. A year or two or three later, I often use the same idea to write a brand new story. For me, it seems to work well.

Adam Israel · Feb 28, 2007

I'm about to do the same thing. Wrote a story several years back, have my notes but lost the draft I wrote.

The rewritten from memory version may benefit from your additional age/wisdom/experience and turn out to be a much stronger story for it. That's the way my experience has been, at least.

Solatium · Feb 28, 2007

PeeDee said:
. . . the story comes out better because mostly what you remember are the interesting bits, the bits that really stuck with you.

Penguin Queen said:
The second time round, it was a lot more detailed & thorught through.

StoneTable said:
The rewritten from memory version may benefit from your additional age/wisdom/experience and turn out to be a much stronger story for it. That's the way my experience has been, at least.

Y'all are probably right, at that. After much searching, I finally turned up my outline and ms. pages. (They were at my mother's house, in a box, in the garage.)

The outline is solid enough, but the story itself is poorly executed: sketchy, uncertain, abrupt. Not as good as I remember. (It is also missing some dialogue I distinctly remember writing. Did I do another draft? If so, then where the hell is it?) I'm going to scrap it and start again from the outline.

After all, <sarcasm>I write so much better now.</sarcasm>

BrendaK · Mar 1, 2007

Rewriting...

This question is a lot like the one I posted in another thread a while ago... I asked, "What do you do when you write a second (or third...) draft of a novel? Do you keep the first draft in front of you, go from memory, or what?" I didn't get a succinct answer. The idea that I assembled out of various replies was that you know (or have notes on) the characters, the setting, and other topics; but you write the plot from memory.

FWIW.

Anthony Ravenscroft · Mar 1, 2007

Ideas go flitting past all the time, & I only rarely have the ability to stop what I'm doing & jot notes.

The good ones are persistent, & recur until I can catch 'em. Last month, I had one come back that I'm fairly certain had last appeared about 1992 -- I'm not in the least kidding.

Your every word is not golden. Trust yourself enough to understand that you don't have to preserve every foetid festering chancre in hopes that it'll turn to ambergris. I've sometimes tried to salvage a piece that didn't quite work, & every time have ended up with some third-rate loser that took twice as long as crafting a better piece from scratch. Anything you can forget is generally better forgotten.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 2, 2007

Notes

Anthony Ravenscroft said:
Ideas go flitting past all the time, & I only rarely have the ability to stop what I'm doing & jot notes.

The good ones are persistent, & recur until I can catch 'em. Last month, I had one come back that I'm fairly certain had last appeared about 1992 -- I'm not in the least kidding.

Your every word is not golden. Trust yourself enough to understand that you don't have to preserve every foetid festering chancre in hopes that it'll turn to ambergris. I've sometimes tried to salvage a piece that didn't quite work, & every time have ended up with some third-rate loser that took twice as long as crafting a better piece from scratch. Anything you can forget is generally better forgotten.

This is pretty much my approach. I gave up making notes many, many years ago. There's nothing worse than a notebook loaded down with horrible ideas. The big problem with writing down every idea you have is that you then want to actually use them.

I originally stopped taking notes because an older, wiser writer told me that if you can forget an idea, it wasn't worth remembering. He was right. The things I want to write about are the ideas that won't go away, even when I try to forget them.

katrinka · Mar 4, 2007

I understand what you're saying. Sometimes I'll have an idea for a story, but it needs to be fleshed out. I'll write the idea, and as ideas come to me, I'll add to it. Because I write something in my notebook, it doesn't mean I'll eventually use it. I think Fitzgerald "worked out" his ideas in notebooks similarly.

bsolah · Mar 5, 2007

I've actually done this before when I've rememberd some wild stories from when I was like 10 or so. I had a pretty weird imagination then and so I've managed to revive some of those old ideas. They don't come out the same of course, and there's some pros and cons with that. One, my writing technique has improved, but two, my imagination doesn't have the same 'purity' as it did when I was 10.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 5, 2007

Notebook

katrinka said:
. Because I write something in my notebook, it doesn't mean I'll eventually use it. I think Fitzgerald "worked out" his ideas in notebooks similarly.

No, but it does mean you'll spend time on it, and time spent on an unworkable idea is time you'll never get to spend on the good ideas.

I don't think there's anything wrong with working out ideas in a notebook, as long as you're positive only ideas that will actually turn into finished work go in there.

This is, I think, the real problem. Once you have an idea you know you'll turn into a finished work, write it down, if you must. Fiddle with it, work with it, change it, etc. Until then, I think writing down ideas is not only a drawback, but a real impediment to getting published.

scarletpeaches · Mar 5, 2007

No writing is ever wasted.

(Providing you learn from it).

katrinka · Mar 5, 2007

I take it you mean writing down ideas only if it will lead to a finished story, novel, whatever. Does it necessarily mean that it will turn into a saleable work? What happens when the story your wrote turns out to be crap? <G>

Jamesaritchie · Mar 5, 2007

katrinka said:
I take it you mean writing down ideas only if it will lead to a finished story, novel, whatever. Does it necessarily mean that it will turn into a saleable work? What happens when the story your wrote turns out to be crap? <G>

There's nothing you can do about this, however you approach it. But at least a finished story stands a chance, and it can be revised, rewritten, etc.

But sometimes stories are crap. Doesn't matter. You learn by finishing stories, not by jotting down ideas.

Dave.C.Robinson · Mar 8, 2007

I rewrote the first fifty pages of my first novel from memory. It wasn't by choice. I'd started the novel ten years earlier and never finished it. I got back into writing and still wanted to finish the novel.

There's no way I'll ever be able to get that old version again, so I can't compare the two, but I know it's a better novel than it would have been if I'd finished it when I originally started. I put a lot of time and effort into studying writing in the intervening years.

PeeDee · Mar 8, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
But sometimes stories are crap. Doesn't matter. You learn by finishing stories, not by jotting down ideas.

THis is true enough.

Sometimes, you have to write a chapter or a scene in a novel in order to realize you don't need it. THat's common enough.

Sometimes, you have to write a short story in order to realize it's no good, and it doesn't work. I've done that a few times.

Dave.C.Robinson · Mar 8, 2007

Sometimes the scene you don't need in the finished work was one you needed to write to discover the story.

Rewriting from memory

Solatium

The_Grand_Duchess

I record everything.

PeeDee

Where's my tea, please...?

Penguin Queen

Break the rules.

Jamesaritchie

Adam Israel

Formerly known as StoneTable

Solatium

BrendaK

Anthony Ravenscroft

Scribble, scribble, scribble

Jamesaritchie

katrinka

bsolah

AW's Resident Commie

Jamesaritchie

scarletpeaches

katrinka

Jamesaritchie

Dave.C.Robinson

... with the High Command

PeeDee

Where's my tea, please...?

Dave.C.Robinson

... with the High Command