Scratch That, Do it Over; August 29 2022

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Today I wanna talk about rewrites. Specifically, how I tackle rewrites. It can be one of the hardest things to do, as an author – you’re taking your vision, which you’ve already put down into words, and rehashing it. It’s dull, and it’s demoralizing – you’ve already told this story.

But rewrites can make your work so much stronger. In my case, I rewrote the entirety of The Other Face of Sympathy to change it from third-person POV to first-person, and from present tense to past tense. It’s a move I’d been considering for months, and some wonderful agent feedback solidified the decision. I knew that I had to do. I very much didn’t wanna.

First step was to save a back-up of the manuscript as it was. I needed to have that to fall back on and for reference. Try to save old drafts, especially ones that deviate drastically from your latest iteration! You never know when you’ll need them.

Second step involved opening the manuscript, saved as a totally new document, and literally just going line by line, altering the POV and tense. This is the most tedious thing. My eyes skipped over several instances of present tense, I missed a few ‘he’s’ and ‘him’s’ throughout the document, but I managed to convert it all (for the most part) in 12 solid hours of work.

Third step? Do the exact same thing. Line by line, take what you wrote and rewrite it with changes along the way. Stronger verbs or more impactful language are a great start. In doing this, you’re also reading your novel and, in theory, paying enough attention to notice spots where you could either cut down or flesh out parts of the plot. The last major revision I did before this rewrite, I noticed a gigantic plot hole that was easily fixed, and I added a couple of scenes that I think upped the stakes considerably.

The end result should be something like… your manuscript’s fraternal twin. Similar enough, following the same story, but fresh and even more compelling. The rewrite should bring your readers closer to the action, have harder-hitting prose, and make you fall in love with your story all over again.

And now, speaking of stories, here’s our next story snippet!

They tried to make a sound to thank her, but found they couldn’t – instinctively, they raised a hand instead, bringing it to their chin.

“Oh,” the woman inhaled. “You can’t speak?”

They supposed they couldn’t. They shook their head slowly.

“But you sign? I know some non-verbal communication, I should be able to get the gist…”

Again, their hand fluttered to their chin and away. The woman smiled. It changed her whole face, lighting her up like sunshine reflecting off the moon.

“You’re welcome. Now, eat.”