Advice on how to rewrite

Justine Larbalestier gives her advice on rewriting…not just line-by-line grammar and spelling check, but how to teach yourself to address the big issues of your writing: pacing, character development, chapter arrangement and so on. The big parts of literary surgery that can determine whether your story lives or dies.

http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/?p=890

She points out some good tricks, but also reminds us that no matter how many times you scan the document, you always tend to miss something. There are always ways to improve a phrase, or tighten a line. She recommends keeping a list of words that you tend to overuse. For me that’d include:

Just
Simply
Only
Totally
Entirely
Slowly
Turned
Suddenly

And many more. Have you checked your writing patterns? Do you know what phrases or words you tend to use more than necessary? Weeding those out will help immensely, but you can only do it if you know your writing well enough. In a way, you have to study yourself, and be aware of your habits, both good and bad, to perform a better rewrite.

Do you repeat core thoughts and ideas in the same paragraph or page?
Do you drown your story in verbose descriptions that breakup the pacing?
Do your characters all sound the same, or repeat the same basic actions to accompany their dialogue?

These are key questions to apply to your revisions, and once you figure out the answers, you can keep them in mind for when you begin your next project and perhaps avoid those pitfalls so it is even easier to revise and rewrite the second go-round.

One of Larbalestier’s comments that caught me was this:

A good question to ask yourself is whether a word or phrase or clause or sentence or paragraph or chapter needs to be there. If deleting it doesn’t affect the flow of the story then why is it there? Kill it! This is my favourite kind of rewriting. Pressing the delete button is easy and fun.

Fun? Actually, I agree. Done right, revising can be as exciting and involving as the writing itself.

I see that smile.