I see the light! angels sing

ccarver30 · Jul 16, 2007

Ya know, I am rewriting my novel and it is SO much better than it was before. I uncomplicated my plot and I am so happy with it.
Yay for 2nd drafts!!!

However, deleting hundreds/thousands of words at a time (I am using my original as a guide) is painful!

Esopha · Jul 16, 2007

Yes. Rewriting is your friend.

*smooches it*

alleycat · Jul 16, 2007

Just be sure to keep a copy of your original somewhere.

sunna · Jul 16, 2007

Right there with you. I'm most of the way through a 3rd draft now, and I'm not sure how I got through the first three and left all that extra stuff in there.

I'm going to hold a memorial ceremony for all the lovely scenes I just killed. The dog will play taps. Refreshments will be served.

swvaughn · Jul 16, 2007

Woo hoo!

I hear the singing.

I used to hate rewriting. Okay, I still hate rewriting - but I can finally appreciate it for the (painful) wonder it is.

NicoleMD · Jul 16, 2007

Yeah, it hurts, but it's for the best. My second draft (about 100k) used maybe 3k words from my first draft. I just went along, deleting a chapter at a time as I worked on the new chapters. That made it a little easier to deal with losing all of those words.

Good luck!

Nicole

ccarver30 · Jul 16, 2007

alleycat said:
Just be sure to keep a copy of your original somewhere.

Oh I did!

Thanks!

MelodyO · Jul 16, 2007

Maybe you could use bits and pieces of your cuts in other works, just like the Inuit use whale parts for many different things.

Okay, it was a fantastic analogy in my head, dammit. Anyway, in short: keep your best stuff.

Thar she blooooows!

ccarver30 · Jul 16, 2007

Brilliant!!!

IrishScribbler · Jul 16, 2007

ccarver30 said:
However, deleting hundreds/thousands of words at a time (I am using my original as a guide) is painful!

*empathy*

I understand how you feel...I'm reducing a character to a couple of phone conversations myself. My printed draft has pages of big Xs through them! *shudder*

Thankfully, I'll still be able to use some of the dialogue I like in the phone conversations.

Zoombie · Jul 16, 2007

ccarver30 said:
Ya know, I am rewriting my novel and it is SO much better than it was before. I uncomplicated my plot and I am so happy with it.
Yay for 2nd drafts!!!

However, deleting hundreds/thousands of words at a time (I am using my original as a guide) is painful!

I did that! I just finished doing that. If I hadn't done that, then Ed wouldn't be in my story at all.

And we know we can't not have Ed anywhere, now can we?

Though I got halfway through the re-write before I realized that I should just delete EVERYTHING else instead of deleting it scraps at a time. So I did and I never felt better.

Hillgate · Jul 16, 2007

Big up to anyone who has the guts to wipe out swathes of their own work. Once you can do that painlessly, rejection's a doddle (plus you'll be rejected far less because your work will be the better for it)!

Claudia Gray · Jul 16, 2007

Yay you! Go you!

gerrydodge · Jul 16, 2007

I'm just now putting the last touches on my WIP. I know when I do the second draft, I will cut out thirty of forty pages. The first five chapters were begun a few years ago, got side-tracked on another novel which is now with an agent, and I have grown so much as a writer since then. So I know a lot of it needs to go. Good for you, though and good luck!

Spiny Norman · Jul 16, 2007

I find wiping out great swathes of text to be liberating, for some reason. I'm like, "I didn't need that, this is cleaner, the hell with yah" whenever need to write something out.

So far I've carved off about 5 or 10 k or so. Out of a 90-95k text, that's a good thing, I think.

gerrydodge · Jul 16, 2007

I find that the first draft requires a lot of added stuff just for your own acknowlegdment of the character--you get to know the person better, and then you ditch the stuff that only you need to know.

Southern_girl29 · Jul 16, 2007

I hate rewriting, but it's something that has to be done. When you've finished it and can look bad on it, you'll know you did the right thing. I cut about 2,000 words from my first draft. I saved them all in another file. After I let a beta reader read it, I had to fix a subplot. I cut another 2,000 words from it. It's a lot stronger now because of it.

Varthikes · Jul 16, 2007

I've spent the latter half of last year doing that same thing with my own novel.

I added in a number of scenes, completely re-worked climax, gave my antagonists a sensible reason for doing what they're doing, and re-wrote the ending a bit. I added three-four more chapters to what I had originally.

Thankfully, I was able to keep a lot of my favorite scenes in that latter half.

WordGypsy · Jul 16, 2007

I was so glad to see this! You were having issues with this story when I first joined and so your posts about it were some of the first I read on here. Really glad to see it's coming along! Remember love, kill your darlings ....good luck and happy hunting

ccarver30 · Jul 17, 2007

WordGypsy said:
I was so glad to see this! You were having issues with this story when I first joined and so your posts about it were some of the first I read on here. Really glad to see it's coming along! Remember love, kill your darlings ....good luck and happy hunting

Aww, you're so sweet! Thanks for the support!

Shady Lane · Jul 17, 2007

I added a good 10,000 words in my second draft...and it helped so much. I'm hoping to add another 5,000 or so to clear everything up.

I'm one of those silly underwriters.

David I · Jul 17, 2007

Everyone says to keep all your cut material (I just keep a full version of each draft in a separate directory), often suggesting you will use them in something else later.

I haven't used them in something else later, but I did have my editor ask me to write a scene involving two characters. As it turned out, it was a scene I'd written in the first draft and then cut in the second for reasons of pacing. So I popped it back in and he liked it as it stood.

It's universally acknowledged that first drafts usually need some cutting and rewriting. But you intuition about what to cut when you rewrite may not be perfect either. Sometimes you had it right the first time around. (Save everything.)

jodiodi · Jul 17, 2007

Good advice. I save all drafts and have separate files for 'cut scenes'.

I have gone back and used scenes I cut in other works. Sometimes I realize they were meant for the other books all along.

I see the light! angels sing

ccarver30

Nicole Castro

Esopha

bam pow zap.

alleycat

Still around

sunna

swvaughn

adrift

NicoleMD

Onomatopotamus

ccarver30

Nicole Castro

MelodyO

Waiting for love on the web

ccarver30

Nicole Castro

IrishScribbler

Zoombie

Dragon of the Multiverse

Hillgate

On location

Claudia Gray

gerrydodge

Spiny Norman

gerrydodge

Southern_girl29

Varthikes

Dragon Writer

WordGypsy

ccarver30

Nicole Castro

Shady Lane

my name is hannah

David I

jodiodi

Reflections of Reality

I see the light! *angels sing*

Nicole Castro

bam pow zap.

Still around

adrift

Onomatopotamus

Nicole Castro

Waiting for love on the web

Nicole Castro

Dragon of the Multiverse

On location

Dragon Writer

Nicole Castro

my name is hannah

Reflections of Reality

I see the light! angels sing