Rewrites, Don’t You Just Love Them?

On July 27, 2011 · In Editing, Rewriting and Editing, This Writer's Life

I’m on day three now of the first rewrite of The Shoestring Proposal (adult novel for 2012 – working title), and it was all going along nicely until I hit a major plot hiccup and had to start all over again.

I’m trying to focus on the overall structure of the story this time but it’s very tempting to tweak at the dialogue and the sentences too. I’ve gone over the first six chapters about five times now and it’s time to let go and move on to the next section of the book. I’ll come back to the first section again later and then start the whole process all over again!

But rewriting is an interesting process. To give you some idea of what I’m up to, below is a short section of a scene from near the opening of the book, with notes (in italics) as to why I’ve added or changed things.
Read it if it interests you. I’ve given you both the original version and the new version.

But first – Other things I’m working on during the rewrite – some of these are minor, some are big:

Changing the name of a secondary character from …

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Rewriting and Taking a Leap of Faith

On July 25, 2011 · In Rewriting and Editing, This Writer's Life

I’m just back from holidays and about to start working on the first rewrite of The Shoestring Proposal (working title – sequel to The Shoestring Club which will be published in February 2012 – so for 2013, gulp!). After this rewrite it will go to my lovely agent, Peta for her notes. And once we are both happy with it, the rewritten draft will wing its way to my editor in Pan Macmillan.

So step one: I’ve printed out the manuscript, made some early notes and this morning I’ll start reading through the pages and make even more notes. It’s slow going, but it works for me.

I know it needs a lot of attention, I know one of the characters in particular isn’t quite right yet and I’m not sure about one of the story strands. I also need to do some fact checking. Rewriting is a vital part of the writing process and demands a clear head and a brave heart.

Yesterday I read JoJo Moyes’s blog (with thanks to Melissa Hill for the heads up on Twitter). This is what she said about rewriting one of her books:

So, four days ago I took the decision to …

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