editing/revising/rewriting

[truepenny]

There is one reassuring thing about having to rewrite the ending of this book, namely that it's exciting. I'm psyched. I haven't been psyched about this book in years.

And I'm deeply relieved, because I was starting to wonder if my enthusiasm was permanently busted.

And I think it shows the difference between rewriting and revising.

Let's take a terminology break. Here's how I'm using these words:

EDITING is cleaning up on the sentence level. You know, punctuation, grammar, whoa nelly that sentence has five dependent clauses nested in it, maybe we should separate that out a little. Moving paragraphs around. Making hooks hookier. That kind of thing.

REVISING is actually changing what you wrote. (This is where most college students in English classes sit down by the roadside and refuse to go on.) It's work on the content level (ideas), rather than the form level (sentence structure, grammar, etc.). It involves a lot of saying, What was I thinking? and it frequently hurts. The relief it brings is the relief of popping a blister, not the relief of having worn the sensible shoes in the first place.

And REWRITING is when you say, I didn't like that baby anyway, and throw the whole bathtub out. This is where you tear free entirely of the old framework--revising is about trying to straighten things out and reinforce with duct-tape, a major rehaul, but not a new engine. Rewriting is a brand new engine. Rather than having the characters do the same thing in a different way, you let them try doing a different thing.

I find rewriting can be incredibly liberating, because it means you can stop trying to fit widget A and gizmo B together as you've been doing for the past FIFTEEN THOUSAND YEARS and throw them both at the wall. You can pick a new widget and a new gizmo, and you've got a much better idea of what shapes they need to be and what they need to do when you spin them.

It feels clean, rewriting does, whereas revising is dirty.

I'm enjoying myself. And that's something to celebrate.

Comments

[cammykitty.livejournal.com]

Yay!!! Glad you're actually having fun! And I'm sure the rewrite is going to be ten thousand times better than "that old thang" of an ending you already had.

[hackerguitar.livejournal.com]

Do you revise/rewrite as you write? I find that I get pretty close to the finished version if I slow down and do changes inline. It doesn't fix everything, obviously, but it tends to cause an intense focus on how everything has conspired to get you to that point.

Deep revising and rewriting is a luxury in which I can't often indulge due to deadlines and such. I'm envious....

[aeriedraconia.livejournal.com]

Glad you're enjoying yourself!

Great post BTW.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That is what my day is like with Sampo, too: one character predeceased another in the first draft, and now that character lives to the end of the book (and the second one does not). And so it's a totally different ending, and la la la yay different ending.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

*scatters rose petals in path of new ending*

[antonstrout.livejournal.com]

what is the correct terminology for the part where the writer makes with the jabbity at their own eye sockets, I wonder?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Sporking.

hth

*g*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Dunno about you, but I feel SO MUCH BETTER. Shiny and new, as Harry Zidler is singing to the Duke on the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack at this very moment.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, I fiddle endlessly. To the point that I can get bogged down if I let myself. So I try to do things in semi-autonomous drafts, both so that I finish them, and so that I don't get (as) confused about what the continuity of the current draft is.

But that's not hard and fast. Most things about writing, IME, aren't.

[hackerguitar.livejournal.com]

But that's not hard and fast. Most things about writing, IME, aren't.

Truer words were seldom spoken.

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

Your breakdown of rewriting/revising/editing is the same as mine. Spiffy. Rewriting is fun. Revising is, yes, often painful. Editing is tedious and I don't do enough of it.

Glad you're having fun now.

BTW, you were one year ahead of me at CWRU. I bet we didn't know each other.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Hee. I suppose it depends which English classes you took.

Or if you took anything in the Classics department. I'd know you then for sure.

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

I was from the Other Half of the school and AP'd my single English requirement.

I had a very broad education in math and science, though...

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ah, South Side.

Yeah, odds are bad, then, since I took my one and only class on that side of campus my freshman year.

(I had delusions of being a math major which died a quick and cataclysmic death.)

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

whoa nelly that sentence has five dependent clauses nested in it, maybe we should separate that out a little.

Hey! Who sent you my short stories?

MKK

[mmarques.livejournal.com]

I was wondering.... do you generally go through all three processes on a book?

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I've had this nasty rewriting block lately. I can edit and revise till the cows come home (or my brain falls out of my head and gets stuck in the keyboard), but when I try to work on a story that needs a major overhaul I balk. Some unhelpful part of my brain keeps saying "oh, we wrote that already, go do something else."

But I have to constantly stop myself from going back to edit and revise minor details (as opposed to major plot details, which I usually have to sort out before I go on).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am starting to get that shiny new feeling, yes.

Unfortunately, my brain is also keen on trying to run off and write the sequel, so it must be reigned in.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

REINED IN AUGHHHHHHHH. I really can spell.