Rewrites and Edits

Not everyone gets it right on the first try. Sometimes, we go back and reread our works from years ago with fresh eyes and find mistakes that we missed during rounds of editing. #bookblog #writingcommunity #bookupdate #editing #coverreveal #writingtips

Not everyone gets it right on the first try. Sometimes, we go back and reread our works from years ago with fresh eyes and find mistakes that we missed during rounds of editing. Even traditional publishers can miss small mistakes like misspelled words or missing articles. It happens to the best of us.

I’m currently rereading a story I wrote when I was 16 and, oh boy, do I have a long road ahead…

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Pain, so much pain

[spn finale spoilers]

i’m in pain. in so much pain, it’s crazy. i did not expect that ending at all. it’s so hard to accept that this era has come to an end, and like this. this was the most unexpected thing to happen, to see sam carrying on without dean for the rest of his life. his “apple pie life” which wasn’t half as beautiful as before because unlike the hard, monster filled life of pain, this one was without his brother. sam and dean lived only for each other. dean died giving sam what dean wanted the most, for him to live a life that was normal. sam gave dean what dean wanted the most too. the pain is excruciating. i can’t believe the people i held onto in my darkest moments bid me a goodbye like this. i can’t bring myself to accept this and am just somehow hoping for a miracle to happen and a finale be shot again. but unfortunately, it won’t.

my life, personally, has been anything but normal. of course not as crazy as the winchesters but yeah haha. i’ve got a fucked up mental health and even more fucked up family. i haven’t really got friends, and the people i met online who want to be there for me, i can’t bring myself to talk to them about what i go through. so sam and dean have been the people i held onto, for a long long time. past few months were especially hard, and the past few days took a few hard turns for me. and it now feels harder to know that the people who were “there for me” aren’t there anymore. and not only because the show has ended. it’s funny how someone who doesn’t even exist can have such a deep impact on your life. dean has been so special for me, it’s hard to bring into words. he was my comfort person. a person i related to a lot. maybe the only character i actually did relate to. to see him going without even having the chance to live, after struggling all through his life took away a little hope from me, but again like he would say carry on.

Dean deserved better and Sam deserved better. They deserved all the happiness the world has to offer. They still do. What made me happy is that they actually are together, maybe not in this world but the other. But the possibility of what all they could have, what all they deserved just makes a little space in my heart which is hard to fill. They are always going to be permanent parts of my heart.

I know it’s been so hard for everyone, but I guess this family we made here is together and will always be. Dean and Sam are alive for us and will be. Dean did not die an untimely death here, in this fandom he’s living happily with Sam. Dean married (Y/N is you’re a dean girl) and Sam married (Y/N if you’re a sam girl). Every day starts with Sam forcing Dean to exercise while Miracle play around happily and it ends with Dean eating a big slice of pie while Sam shakes his head, sometimes annoyed and sometimes happily. They spoil their girls everyday. Sometimes they all sit together as the boys tell you about the hunts they’ve been on. Dean bragging about his heroism and Sam doing the same sometimes. It isn’t until midnight when they’re alone with their wives that they opened up about the struggles they faced. A few tears and a lot of kisses, you make love until his pain is replaced with pleasure. And just like that, a new day starts and their lives carry on.

I’m still not sure when I’ll be active again, like I said it’s been really hard lately. My career, my family and even myself. Nothing seems to go right. I’m surrounded by a lot of toxic and abusive people and now of course, now that my favorite people have gone, it’s gonna be even harder. I guess I’ll have to read a few fics to finally feel Dean alive again. So do suggest me if there are some fix-it fics. And please talk about your experiences too, I know it’s hard on all of us. I love you, always keep fighting.

I’ve been posting a lot about finishing a first draft of something new. So I thought it might be helpful if I also included my plans about what to do next. 

Step One: Preserve the Draft

I work in Scrivener, so my first step is to compile, save, and preserve my draft. For me, this means I’m:

• Capturing a snapshot of the current version of my chapters in Scrivener, so I can keep editing the main ‘manuscript’ files without losing access to the current version.
• Exporting and saving the entiremanuscriptas “[TITLE] - First Draft - July 2020″ so that as I finish further revisions, I’ll always know which version this one is. 
• Emailing the draft to myself, saving it in iCloud, and printing it. Whatever it takes to ensure its safe keeping. This way, no matter what happens–if my computer falls into a pool and is destroyed–my entire first draft of this book will be safe somewhere. 

This way, I can revise and edit and generally make a mess of things again without having to worry that anything I do going forward is going to affect the contents or completeness of my first draft. 

Step Two: Second Sketches 

I don’t want to dive into the editing process just yet, so before doing a serious re-read or re-plotting my entire book, I’m going to set about re-sketching my settings and characters. 

In my first drafts, I treated my settings and characters as flexible. When I realized something about them wasn’t working, I changed that thing and kept going. Events changed locations, buildings changed distance from one another, Three of my characters had abrupt job changes in chapter ten, when I realized I could remove an extraneous plot and weave their storylines into a more central plot by doing so. Somewhere immediately after I tell the reader my protagonist has glasses, I forgot to ever mention them again. 

This means my initial character and setting sketches are all–well, not useless,but not quite useful anymore either. Now that I’ve figured out where and what things and people need to be in order to make the story work, I’m writing down new “character/setting rules” to guide me through my first revision. I want to make them consistent. 

For settings, this means I’m going to go through and decide on:

• A “map” of the locations of the story and figure out exactly where things are in relation to one another
• The layouts of individual settings 
• What specific places look, smell, and sound like 
• The “rules” of the world 

For characters, this means I’m going to go through and decide on their:

• physical characteristics
• personality and backstory
• relationships both with other characters and the world around them
• character arcs: their wants, their fears, their internal conflicts, and how they’re supposed to be growing and changing throughout the novel

And if I decide my protagonist does wear glasses, I’m going to make sure she’s wearing them throughout the entire story. 

Step Three: Read

Writing Advice

In the next few weeks, I’m going to read and reread books and blogs on writing. I am going to soak it all up. I’m going to learn or remind myself about what makes a story good. Refine my knowledge of writing craft. These are the ideas that are going to help me make my revised draft better than my first one.

Fun books!

I’m also going to read for fun, especiallythe books I was avoiding because they were in a similar genre/category to the one I was drafting. I want to know how good the “competition” is, and also see those “writing rules” I’ve been reading about in writing advice books/blogs in action. 

The First Draft

Finally, I’m going to crack open my own book. 

This is the hardest part of a revision: critically reading what I’ve written so I can prepare to tear it to pieces and rebuild it. 

Oof.

For this, I recommend changing the font, either printing it out or putting it on an e-reader, settling down in your favorite spot to read, and reading it in one go. I’m probably going to print mine out and put it in a binder. This will help me see it with the eye of a reader/editor instead of an author, and hopefully help me put some emotional distance between me and the work I’ve done. 

I’m going to keep a notebook nearby and take notes about things that are working, things that aren’t working, ideas for changes, and other stray observations (like words I’m using too often, or where I’m repeating myself, or abandoned plot points, etc.). 

Step Four: Re-Outline

This step itself has many steps.

• Step One: Identify the core idea of the story. In clear terms, write out in one or two sentences what this story is about, English-major style. ie. “This story is about a girl finding the courage to pursue the life she wants, not the one her parents have planned for her. Her struggles are reflected back on her when she encounters the ghost of a princess who cares so much what history thinks of her, she’s letting its opinion turn her into a literal monster.” 
• Step Two: Outline the events in the story as it currently exists. 
• Step Three: Evaluate how well it conveys the core idea, and how the current structure works. Identify:
• the purpose of various scenes (ie. inciting incident) 
• Extraneous scenes/plots/characters
• Plot points that should be in the story but are missing
• Key moments of character arcs
• Events that support the core idea
• Events that either don’t support or work in opposition to the core idea
• Step Four: Rebuild the outline so that the story has a strong structure that supports the core idea. 

Step Five: Share

I know I’m going to struggle with figuring out exactly how to rebuild my story, so I’m going to share both my first draft and my unfinished plan with my writing friends. I’m going to ask them for their ideas and advice. With their feedback, I’m going to solidify my plan for my new outline, hopefully a bit more confident that it’s the right one. 

I know not all people have a group of writing buddies they can easily do this with. If you don’t have a critique group, don’t sweat it. It helps and it’s worth an attempt to try to find one, but it’s not a vitalstep.

Step Six: Revise 

Finally, I’m going to go through my work chapter by chapter: editing scenes, trashing scenes, and writing new scenes entirely from scratch until I have a manuscript that’s hopefully much better than the first.

If I revise this book like I did my last one, I’ll probably polish the chapters as I move through them, so that when i’m done, some chapters will be on their twelfth drafts, some will be on their second, but overall it’ll be the best version of the story I’m currently able to write. 

–

It’s a lot, and it seems like a very daunting process from my current standpoint, but finishing the first draft seemed daunting too, just a few weeks ago, and I got through that process. With time and effort, I’ll get through this one too.