How to rewrite rapidly and efficiently

There's no doubting the warm glow of satisfaction on finishing a manuscript and the hope that this is in fact the 'final' draft - even if it's only the first. Chances are it isn't the finished product but it's nice to wallow in the vain dream that it might be - until reality dawns and it's back to work. Sometimes though you don't have the luxury of waiting for reality to strike; sometimes the commission/submission/competition deadline looms and you need to start improving that rose-tinted manuscript ASAP.

Here's what you need to do when your back's against the wall:

Learn to un-love it

Critical distance is the holy grail. Ten years away from a project will give you all the distance you could ever hope for. Unfortunately you don't have ten years. What you need is a brutal critique from a complete stranger who takes an instant dislike to you. Even if what they say is utter tripe, you'll analyse what you've written with a far more critical eye. It's painful this way, but it's faster.

Prioritise

So you get your critical distance and realise that there's not just one or two things wrong but everything is wrong – you can't possible fix all that in the eight hours left before the deadline. The answer is you have to prioritise. What's going to make the biggest improvement to this piece with the minimum effort? Story elements are probably close to the top – and a good beginning and ending can hide a multitude of sins. Next look at characters – are they convincing? Do they have desires and motivations?

Think before you write

You may be tempted to just crack-on with rewriting because time is short and you can't afford to wait – but remember these words – different is not necessarily better. You need to make sure that the changes you are making are actual improvements and not just saying the same thing in a different way.

Try before you buy

Ever had an itch you didn't scratch? A niggling doubt or an idea that just won't go away but you're just not sure it's worth pursuing particularly as time is so pressing? Here's a maxim – niggling doubts and ideas are always worth pursuing. If they turn out to be crap you can bin them and return to the original MS – which you did save a copy of, right? Don't be afraid to save a new version and pursue the idea, while the original version is still nice and safe to fall back on. Here's another maxim – if you have any niggling doubts they are most likely humdinging problems that the fee-paying public will vomit at. Fix them.

Don't dilute your truth

Don't forget why you wrote the story in the first place – in my experience there's more raw truth in the first draft than in any other draft – don't lose that power, just draw it out, expose it, reveal it in better ways – but for crying out loud do not DILUTE it.

Remember what you know

I always forget everything I ever learnt about writing the moment I finish a draft. Because my memory is so abominable I compel myself to ask two simple things:

1. how can I improve this story

2. how can I develop these characters

Because things that are wrong with a manuscript essentially boil down to these two things – a faulty story and under-developed characters.

Destroy to create

Don't be tempted to just fiddle around massaging words and phrases – sure you may feel you don't have time to undergo massive structural changes but if that's what's needed that's what's needed. No amount of polishing is going to fix a turd. The truth is, if you get the structure and story right, the words will fly because you know it's good. Stories with good characters and structure pretty much write themselves.

Write around the edges

Sometimes what's wrong with a story isn't what's written on the page but what's not written off it. Chances are your characters are flat because you haven't developed them. Odds-on that your scene isn't working because there are no points of conflict. Most likely your unconvincing character actions are because you haven't developed a justification (read motivation) for that character. The fact that your story is dull is probably because you don’t have one. Feed those characters and story with off-page development. Believe me, it's not wasted time – I recently spent a day and a half developing a character's background and it allowed me to fix a scene with a three line change.

Good luck.

How to write critiques that don't kill

There's a reason why messengers get shot. Nobody likes bad news – particularly if it's a list of perceived problems with a project someone has spent months slaving over, spilling their blood, guts and personality into it. To a writer exhausted by lack of sleep, persistent rejection and a life of lonely unappreciation 'sorry I just don't get this character's motivation' is likely to be the last nail in their coffin. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the business, the first reaction to a penetrating critique is at best defensive, at worst homicidal.

So before stepping into that emotional minefield you need to get your shit together – here's how:

1. Establish credentials

Sometimes you'll be giving feedback to someone you already have a relationship with, but often you may find yourself working with someone you don't know, or worse, someone who doesn't know you. Make sure you make them aware of your past experience with critiquing and/or successful writing projects, perhaps even giving them examples of your work. Bad news is bad to take from anyone, so don't give them a chance to dismiss your feedback out of hand, otherwise you're wasting your time.

2. Establish trust

If the writer thinks you're going to post snippets of their germinal projects online for trans-global mocking, or maybe even talk about them in the pub, it's hardly going to help strengthen what is an already fragile relationship. If the writer thinks you're not going to be sensitive to their hopes, ambitions and fears they may not end up submitting again. You need to be trusted and taken seriously.

3. Establish terms

Some writers just can't take it on the chin. My erstwhile writers' group had at least two full-on lost-it arguments that I know about, one of which involved me. If you've spent four hours working on a critique only to be shouted down by the writer every point you make then everybody's wasting their time. Make sure you work out with the writer the best way of delivering the crit – in person, over the phone, in writing, or a combination of all. That way you give the writer an opportunity to deal with the truth on their terms.

4. Understand the story

Remember that you're not writing your story – they are trying to write their story - and you are trying to help. Sure, you would probably enjoy a car-chase right through their Mills&Boon romance but saying so is no help to anyone. Leave your ego and your writing ambitions at home, try and understand the story they are trying to tell, and see what you can do about helping them tell it.

5. Look for the positives

Disrespecting someone's writing is easy. You can't help but notice all those problems in someone else's work that you can't recognise in your own, but your criticisms will be given far more weight if you can also recognise good writing, promising story-lines, and intriguing characters. Make those points too.

Sometimes your faced with a piece of writing so atrocious it's impossible to find any good in it whatsoever. Invent something. You need to sweeten the pill so that the bad news will be taken seriously - then hopefully next time you read it you will find something positive to say.

6. Don't react to defence

I don't care who you are – the first reaction to a bad crit is a defensive one – with the best will in the world, it's hard not to justify your creative choices – 'I had to write that passage abominably because...'. When faced with a writer defending the indefensible take a breath, smile sweetly, and move on to the next point.

7. Tell them what they need to know, not what you think you know

So you may have just learnt about deus ex machina, defamiliarization, subtext, dramatic irony, in media res, foreshadowing, foretelling, inciting incidents and god-knows-what-else, but no one cares. Don't pontificate about what you think you know, look hard at the work in question and tell the writer what they need to know.

8. If in doubt, leave it out

If you're not sure about a point it's probably not worth making. They'll be more than enough for you to pick on, so don't weaken the points you feel strongly about by articulating the ones you don't.

9. Don't make it personal

Treat it as a learning exercise. Assume that the writer will ignore everything you say. Focus on developing your understanding and your expression. Anything else (like appreciation) is a bonus. There's no point in getting shirty because the writer doesn't love your crit. Years later they may, but right now they just hate you.

10. Do it properly

Nobody crits the critters. A well-written and penetrating critique takes time and effort. To analyse the story, identify problems, suggest improvements, and hardest of all, express these (potentially wrong) ideas in a way that's understandable and communicable to an audience that most likely doesn't want to hear them takes skill. Make the effort – it's not just the writer who'll benefit if you do it well. You'll learn about good writing from the analysis process and you'll also recognise your own weaknesses far more easily when you see them in the works of others.

Performing open-heart surgery on a scene

Some scenes are born easily, some are dragged kicking and screaming into the world; some are born beautiful, some as ugly as sin. So what do you do when your scene looks more like Frankenstein's monster than Adonis?

Scenes are the heartbeats of story, the essence of drama – and sometimes (most of the time) they're going to need some work beyond the first draft. But as any surgeon will tell you, you need to know what to expect beneath the surface when you make that first cut. To that end here are the four elements of a scene.

Purpose

This, essentially, is the point of the scene – the reason that it's included at all. If you distil the scene down to its dramatic purpose you may find that it has none at all, in which case you cut it. You may also find that the purpose of the scene may be better served by another scene. Whatever the case, understanding what the purpose of a particular scene is will allow you to develop the best way of presenting that purpose.

The four purposes of a scene are as follows (in order of importance):

1. To progress the story

2. To reveal character

3. To introduce a character

4. Exposition

The more of these 'reasons' your scene is serving, the more purposeful the scene will be.

Context

Context is how the scene relates to the rest of the story. Many novice writers fail to grasp that a significant part of the power of a scene is due to what has come before it or what the scene implies will come after. In classical storytelling there is a beginning, a middle and an end to all stories – and all those elements depend on the others to have any meaning at all. Scenes should be a natural consequence of what has gone before – this thread of consequence is narrative. This is why scriptwriters have notions of 'inciting incidents' (suggesting future scenes) and 'obligatory scenes' (scenes demanded by previous events). All these types of scenes are defined by how they relate to other scenes – in other words, their context.

Action

This is what actually happens in the scene. This should be obvious, but many writers produce lengthy scenes where nothing happens at all or are merely expositional. This isn't enough no matter how scintillating the dialogue or interesting the exposition – something has to happen. How can you define if something has happened? Something must have changed for the characters within that scene – it doesn't have to be something epic, it just has to be something of dramatic significance. Small details can have massive dramatic significance. Massive actions can have trivial significance. It's the consequence of the action that's really important.

Situation

This is the setting – the location – in which the scene takes place. While the situation itself can be dramatic, and indeed the scene itself should be, it is possible to divorce a scene from it's setting – it is in fact the most loosely-coupled of the four elements to the scene. Despite this, it's foolish to ignore the dramatic possibilities of setting - juxtaposing a location which carries a particular emotional resonance with a scene that's carries the opposite emotion can heighten a scene or comment upon it – a marriage break-up scene in a children's playground for example. Also emotion could be reinforced by a setting that complements the action of a scene.

But situation is not just about location – it's also can carry a certain amount of dramatic business of its own – a plane diving out of the sky, a sinking ship, or a precarious cliff-edge all have significant dramatic potential divorced from the action of a scene. Now imagine my marriage-breakup example scene occurring in one of these places.

Armed with this information you now should be able to understand what's going on with any scene you write, and what you need to do about it to make it excellent.

Some more useful links about scenes:

How to fix a crap scene

How to let a scene write itself

The scene-deck - a story-building technique

How to write a compelling opening

Five reasons why blogging makes you a better writer

Apparently there's only one reason to write a blog – to build a 'platform', which you can then convert to customers to buy your 'product'.

Right.

Aside from the fact that anyone who thinks of their potential readership in those terms doesn't deserve anyone's time or money, thinking of your blog in terms of 'platform' is a little like obsessing about how to get published before you've learned to write.

So before you start putting the cart before the horse - or worse, giving it up before you even start - here are five reasons to write a blog even if no one else ever reads it.

Regularity

Having to produce something of quality regularly can be quite a challenge, but it's an excellent habit for a writer to form. Whether you blog daily, weekly or monthly blogging requires discipline to compel yourself to do it – and that discipline rubs off elsewhere.

'But I already produce 5000 words a day. I don't need more discipline' says the failing writer. Ok, but there's a big difference between producing 5000 words of drivel no-one is ever going to read and a taut 500 words that will be published online and possibly read by everyone.

Consistency

You're only as good as your last piece of writing.

Regular blogging instils the need to keep producing consistently readable stuff, and with that need you are compelled to develop skills that improve consistency: style and voice, the ability to make the mundane interesting, the obvious less so – all of which is useful wherever and whatever you write.

Relevance

Once you start publishing blog-posts for others to read, you start caring about your readers – what they want, what they like, what interests them and what they respond to. You start to realise that your headline not only needs to be attention grabbing, but that it also needs to indicate the content of the post. You start to understand that writing isn't about pontificating about what you think you know, but about what you can say and how you can say it in such a way that your readership actually gives a shit.

And how the hell to you know when you're starting to succeed at all these things? When people start (and keep) reading what you're saying.

Idea Generation

Probably one of the most useful things about having to find something to write about regularly is that you learn to germinate ideas rapidly and repeatedly. This coupled with the skills outlined in point 2 means that everything starts to become potential subject-matter. It can seem daunting to have to come up with post ideas all the time, but for a writer to be in the position where she doesn't know what to write about it or how to write about it is never a good thing – regular blogging helps you get over that.

Thought Cohesion

There's nothing like realising how little you understand something the moment you try and explain it to someone else. There's nothing like realising how badly formed your ideas are when you start to articulate them in writing - you learn to smarten your ideas up pretty quick. Blogging doesn't mean you have to be the authority in the area you blog about – you can use it as an opportunity to develop your knowledge and skills in a subject you'd like to understand more about. You want to know about early nineteenth century armadillo racing? Then do some prep and write a blog-post about it – and do it in such a way that's interesting and compelling.

Isn't that exactly what writing is all about?