Write or Re-Write?

I recently brought up a question about my current work-in-progress to one of my email loops (a group consisting of other published authors) thinking rewriting an old story is a common occurrence. I found out many people have indeed faced this issue before me, so I’m going to share with you some of the responses I received.

Specifically, I asked which way they would approach what I’m doing — completely rewrite the same plot idea by starting fresh, or go through the existing manuscript as if it’s a massive revision?

Here are some of the responses I received:

Tamera Alexander said of rewriting her very first book…

Not a good idea. So not a good idea. So NOT a good idea.

Nearly drove myself crazy for many reasons, some of them being:

1) I wrote this story eight years ago and while I recognized “me” in the story, my voice and style had changed a ton.
2) I’ve learned more about the “basics of writing” since then so was constantly having to correct simple things that I’ve learned since not to do (or else catch and correct as I go).
3) The plot pacing was off (a good reason why it was rejected. SO glad those pubs rejected it) which meant scenes needed to either be moved, or were episodic and simply needed to be cut entirely.
4) I added a subplot, weaving that throughout, so the overall structure of the story changed and it was crazy to weave that through the old stuff

So I found it best to toss the original manuscript and just write fresh.

Same question to Sharon Dunn:

I would not rewrite from scratch. To me, it’s less work if the structure is already in place. And you might think that you will have to throw out a lot but you might find some gems you would lose by not working with the manuscript.

And from Cheryl Hodde (who writes with her husband under the pseudonym Hannah Alexander)

Rewrites of any kind are much more fun than the first draft…I had the most fun of my life when I cut a 100,000 word novel down to 60,000 words. I don’t like to cut scenes, just excessive wording. I’ve done that dozens of times and loved every minute of it. Enjoy!!!

From Jane Kirkpatrick:

I’ve been reading Elizabeth Lyon’s book Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques no Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore (Perigee, Penguin imprint) and find it VERY helpful. I think it was PW or some other worthy publication who listed it as one of the 10 best books about writing published this year. She begins with suggesting you read the book slowly, out loud. Man, was that painful and insightful!

From Linda Windsor:

I’ve kept the ideas, freshened them, and rewritten the whole thing in my most recent style/voice. Basically you have a detailed outline that you will improve as you rewrite. Some scenes you’ll keep. Others you’ll revise. Some will get tossed for something better. Your characters may surprise you on the way to the end with a few unexpected twists, which means the reader won’t see them coming either. This happened with me. But the rewritten books were SO much better than the original. Had I just started with the old ms, I’d have lost my creative spontaneity and been bogged down in what was already done and mediocre compared to what I could now do.

From Ruth Axtell Morren:

One of my first manuscripts, which finaled in the Golden Heart, (RWA) was not really marketable in the U.S. market, because of setting & time period (golden age of Holland, which I wrote the first time I was living in Holland). But my Dutch publisher was interested. So, I took it out with great trepidation, after more than 10 years of not looking at it. I was so afraid the plotting would be all off.

But…when I reread it, I actually got back into the story. There were things I had to change/delete/rewrite, since I have grown as a writer. But, what was eye-opening for me, was to see the strengths in my writing back then. Back in pre-published days, I had the time to come up with good descriptive language, metaphors and similes (I deleted the excess and kept the best). It made me realize how rushed my writing has become under deadlines.

I remember some time back Jennifer Crusie wrote an article in RWR saying the last of her unpubbed manuscripts had just been accepted for publication (re-written, of course). Wouldn’t that be nice, to see all one’s labors in print?

And here’s the quick and simple advice from Angela Hunt:

“Rip that puppy down to the bare bones…”

And from Terri Blackstock:

I treat it like a revision, Maureen. No need to throw out the baby with the bath water…when I revise, I do a LOT of rewriting. My official revisions take at least a month. So when I say to treat the manuscript like a revision, I just mean that you don’t want to throw out everything. Keep what you can, and then rewrite over it. Create new scenes if you have to, take some out. But there’s probably a lot there you can save, or you wouldn’t have gone back to it.

And finally, Robin Lee Hatcher has approached revamping an old book by treating a massive rewrite as just that . . .

“…The kind where the editor asks you to move/change something in chapter one and it has repercussions all the way through the book. I make a lot of notes on the manuscript and then make the changes into the computer. It’s tough work regardless.

But a friend of mine sold a book that she’d written before she was published, and she discovered she just couldn’t do it that way. She had the book beside her but wrote as if it were a new book. I think it took her as many months to rewrite as it does to write a new book.”

Did you note the important part there? It’s tough work regardless.

I was afraid of that. No kicking back in the next few months with the bonbons at my fingertips…