“Books aren’t written - they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it”. - Michael Crichton
The dreaded rewrite is an epic task that every writer must face and to clarify, by rewrite I don’t mean extensive corrections or rigorous editing. I mean the process whereby a writer takes their beloved two hundred plus pages of blood, sweat and tears and pretty much pens the entire story from scratch. Rewriting is born of the assumption that the first draft will contain the authors uninhibited passion, with characters and plotlines having resulted from a spontaneous surge of creative energy, and that rewriting is necessary in order to demonstrate artistic control, whereby the author takes care of all those niggly technical details and contemplates the novel from the reader’s perspective. When rewriting my first (and only) novel, I did so with a brutality that boarded on sadistic, with many of my central characters ending up slain. By doing so the story that I wanted to present was tighter and more discernible. Or so I thought.
Almost a year ago I was of the belief that my completed novel was almost ready to hit the shelves. Then, at the last minute I succumbed to self-doubt and decided to hold off sending it to prospective agents. I instead submitted my novel to The Literary Agency (TLC) for a full Manuscript Assessment. Though confident that the novel that I had submitted presented my best efforts and a high standard of writing, I nevertheless experienced high anxiety at the prospect of having it read by an ‘expert,’ who in this case was a published author. A month after submission I received a full appraisal in the form of a twenty-page report. Beyond nervous I read through the report on tenterhooks, devouring each word, fraught with apprehension. When finished reading I found myself feeling dejected yet optimistic, rejected yet pumped and exhilarated, a real mixed bag of contradictory emotions. Overall I felt enthused to continue on. The report praised the descriptive elements of my novel, the character building, the language and depiction of true raw emotion. Where my novel was said to fall down, was in relation to the plot structure and that all important ‘narrative arc.’ Not that I agreed with everything contained in the report but I found that I had no choice but to observe aspects of the critique that were undisputable and thus exceedingly constructive in terms of my development as a writer. Ironically, many of the points made regarding plot, were ones that I had made myself on many occasions when critiquing the work of clients (in my capacity as a creative writing tutor). Yet, as is often the case, I remained blind to the very same issues present within my own work. For instance, I was so familiar and close to my characters and so believed their stories, that I had neglected to consider how they presented in a storytelling context and how they worked to create narrative tension. This meant that whilst the plot as a whole contained instances of tension and conflict, there was no discernible link between those instances and the actions and motivations of the characters.
The report concluded with the suggestion that I rewrite the whole novel, focussing on increasing conflict throughout. It was also suggested that I refocus certain aspects of the plot so that the novel would fit into the ‘crime fiction’ genre, as it was thought that my novel would do well if categorised as such. Receiving such detailed feedback on my work provided me with a wealth of invaluable insights, and yet the thought of rewriting a novel that I had already rewritten at least three times was exceedingly daunting, especially if considering that a full rewrite would take at least a year.
“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.” - Stephen King
With the words of the good and the great motivating me towards the end goal, I sat at my laptop, rearing to go. Truth be told, I initially found it difficult to muster the energy to begin writing a book that I originally began writing in 2012. The task of beginning again was arduous to say the least but I made an impressive start. Then I stopped. Then I started again and stopped again. Then I began to wonder whether this book was really the be-all-and-end all. I began to question my commitment to it and puzzled over exactly why it was that I hadn’t been able to work on anything else other than this novel for so long. Was it that, when employing as much objectivity as I could in judgement of my own work, my novel depicted such a powerful story that it had to be told? Or was my first novel a safety net, something that I was now addicted to? Was I in fact holding onto it because I had developed an emotional bond with my characters and their stories that I was loathed to relinquish. This line of thought brought me back to a week that I spent at Arvon almost three years ago. In 2014 I attended a residential writing course delivered by the Arvon Foundation, where my peers and I were fortunate enough to receive feedback on our work from two professional authors. During one of the question and answer sessions I asked Naomi Wood, author of the The Godless Boys and Mrs Hemingway, what a writer should do if they submitted their novel to multiple agents and were rejected at every turn. Naomi Wood offered a response that made me distinctly uncomfortable. She said that sometimes it was necessary to persevere but on other occasions it was important for an author to consider whether their first novel was simply a stepping stone into serious writing, in which case the better option would be to set it aside and commit to writing something else. “Just keep writing,” is what she advised. I did not like that answer. At that time, I craved a very specific response, one that would accord with the over told, inspirational story of JK Rowling’s journey into writing, which included the famous book Harry Potter being rejected by numerous agents. I was not ready to hear anyone suggest that perhaps my novel, the love of my life, was simply a route to something more significant, a way of ‘cutting my teeth.’
I have now begun to see the gems of wisdom in the advice offered by Naomi Wood. After all, writers write and part of writing must entail periodically generating new ideas, which in turn generate new and original prose. My commitment to one piece of work had caused a type of stagnation in terms of my ability to generate new ideas and develop those ideas into something more tangible. For instance, over the past five years I had found myself generating dozens of new plot ideas, even writing a couple of chapters here and there but inevitable my attention would revert back to the novel that I had completed.
I decided that something had to give and made the emotionally excruciating decision to put my first novel aside. In doing so I gave myself permission to say good bye and to mourn all the hard work that had gone into it. To my astonishment, once I did this, a couple of significant things happened. First and foremost, I realised that I had become so seduced by “what it meant to have my novel professionally appraised,” that I had taken for granted the subjective nature of opinion and taste when applied to literature. I realised that whilst I had gained invaluable advice, I did not want to implement some of the more fundamental changes suggested by the professional reader. I suddenly felt confident in my assertion that whilst the novel did need to undergo another rewrite, there were certain aspects that I was unprepared to change. As such, I decided to place my novel on the shelf until I was in a position to rewrite it in accordance with my own vision. In the meantime I had to write something, and write I did.
Whereas previously I had been unable to move beyond the first chapter of a new story I suddenly found myself completely in the zone, easily writing in excess of a thousand words a day. Which is where I am now. Four weeks on and I am eleven chapters and twenty-five thousand words into the first draft of my new novel. Each day I feel driven and motivated to continue and, whilst every now and then a nugget of doubt creeps in, pulling me back to my first novel, I am one hundred percent sure that my attention belongs where it is. In his book On Writing, Stephen King states his belief that a first draft should take no longer than three months to complete. So, April 2017, here I come.
In conclusion, when considering the question of whether to complete that arduous rewrite or put your first novel aside and commit to something new, the answer will be different for everyone. What I would say, is that sometimes taking a step back and making difficult decisions is a necessary part of being a writer. We should also remember that putting a novel down does not mean that we have to forget about that book forever. There are many examples of authors returning to novels that were left half-finished decades previously, which then go on to become bestsellers. Often it is simply a matter of timing.
Please feel free to leave comments and share any experiences that you have in relation to rewriting your first novel.
Written by Michelle Shakespeare @ Ready2Write.co.uk
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