I’ve been wading through editing for a while now, and I’ve developed three types of edit rounds I do for my books. These don’t include any edits that come from editors but are what I do myself before showing my manuscript to an editor. The first and least technical edit is what I call the rewrite. This week we are going to focus on how I do rewrites, and hopefully my process will help you with your own editing.
Definition
When most people say rewrite, it means redo the whole manuscript or at least the majority of it. That is not what I am referring to here. My definition of rewrite is going back and fixing any plot, character, or setting issues that popped up during the writing process. It’s not really editing, but neither am I starting from scratch again. Rewriting for me is taking out and putting in what the story needs to make it strong.
The Process
There are seven main areas I address during my rewrite. These are about the overall story and can be called the “big picture” edits. I go through my manuscript seven times and focus on one of these areas each time. You can do more than one at a time if you want to multi-task, but these areas take a lot of brainpower so I prefer to focus on one each round in order to make them the best I can during my rewrite.
Congruency: Add In-Story Corrections
While I’m writing, I try to follow my outline, but stories evolve no matter how tight an outline you make. Some things just don’t click in your head until halfway through the book. For these moments, I keep a notebook near me to jot down ideas. Did I decide someone has a secret? I’ll need to go back and foreshadow that in the part I’ve already written. Or if I learn I need a new character to make my plot work, I write that down. When I finish writing the first draft, I have a list of things that needs to be inserted, deleted, or changed to fit the direction of a new subplot. During my rewrite, I use this list to go back and make the story congruent.
Theme: Clarify The Message
Not everyone writes a book with a theme in mind during the first draft. Sometimes, it’s after you’ve finished writing and look back that you see the message of the story. Regardless if you have a theme in mind while writing or discover it later, you need to make sure the theme flows through the whole story and reaches a conclusion.
I can hear some of you saying, “I don’t want my book to preach some moral. I just want to entertain people.” A theme isn’t about preaching. It’s about your character’s internal conflict with a universal truth. If your protagonist struggles with the idea of justice as she works court cases, justice is the theme. You don’t have to sway your readers one way or another on the topic, but your protagonist needs to come to some conclusion at the end about her beliefs. Don’t leave the theme hanging unanswered or the readers will feel unfulfilled in the end.
Progression: Check For Progress
It’s easy to write a story where no progress happens. If you like to write setting or character best, sometimes you miss that nothing is happening in the plot. I know I’m guilty of this at times. Looking at the whole story, do you see a progression in the main plot, subplots, characters, and relationships? Progress doesn’t always mean positive. Your characters can grow apart, or their plans can fail. You need to make sure that the story isn’t stagnant and the ending is starkly different from the beginning.
Pacing: Analyze The Flow
Pacing is sometimes hard to see yourself. I suggest you check your scenes for this pattern: action then reaction. Don’t have all your scenes be internal dialogue and nothing happening. Also, don’t string together a ton of action scenes that don’t allow your reader to breath. The best way to check your pacing is to ask others to read it and mark where they got bored or had to step back for an emotional break. If they mark the former, you need more action. If the latter, you need more reaction scenes. Eventually, you’ll figure out the perfect balance for your genre.
Simplification: Cut The Excess
After tackling the big concepts listed above, I analyze each chapter to see if I can cut it and lose nothing from the story. If the answer is yes, I delete it. If there is just one or two small things that would be missed, I delete the chapter and work those things into another chapter.
Then the process is repeated for every scene, character, and subplot. If they don’t add to the overall story, get rid of them. If you have two characters who fulfill the same role in a story, merge them into one character. Make things as simple as possible while maintaining the depth of the story. The reader will follow along easier, and you can give what is left of the story more depth.
This is one of the hardest parts of rewrites because we are the creators and see importance in everything. Unfortunately, we are wrong. Try your best to be objective and delete everything you can. If you can’t do it, then assign someone you trust to help you. Ask them to mark everything they don’t think adds to the story, and then delete those parts. Yes, that means you have to trust them. If you don’t follow a reader’s suggestions, you may be having a similar conversation with an editor later.
Logic: Fill The Holes
Find those plot holes. It can be hard to see them yourself so you may need to rely on critique partners for this, but sometimes you can catch them yourself by just doing a fluid read through of the story. I suggest taking at least a few weeks break from the story to clear your head, and then go back and read it all the way through. You’ll be surprised how many plot holes you find.
When filling the holes in your story, try to use what you already have instead of inventing something new to fix it. Can an existing character show up and fix the issue? Is there a subplot that can use the hole to further its goal? Remember, we just cut a lot out of our story and don’t need to add more excess. Use what you already have and let your imagination form it into something unexpected to fill the hole. It will shock your readers and fix your problem at the same time.
Emotion: Amp Up The Tone
Every story has a tone, a primary emotion, it seeks to carry throughout the book. Often the tone is referenced in its genre. A horror book seeks to cause dread and fear. A science fiction gives a sense of wonder. A romance, love. These emotions are what your reader is wanting from the book so you need to make sure you deliver it.
As I rewrite, I look for ways to amp up my tone. I write fantasy so I add more wonder to each scene. I don’t think there can be too much of the primary tone in your book. Look at every chapter and ask how you can increase the tone. You can also amplify your tone by inserting a secondary tone or emotion that complements your primary one. Suspense amplifies fear. Sadness intensifies the happiness of love. Since people read to feel something, make sure you give them as much of that emotion as possible in a meaningful way.
Final Thoughts
Congruency, theme, progression, pacing, simplification, logic, and emotion are the main areas I focus on when doing a rewrite. The goal is to have the best story possible before working on how you present that story (word choices). This process takes a lot of brainpower to finish, but it also provides a satisfying product. You can be proud of your story and the thrill it will give readers. After some polishing, you’ll have a professional book to offer the world.
Thanks for reading!
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