A Case Study on Why Rewriting Is Superior

In this example, I want to go over why writers should always rewrite their stories. Whether that means going back over the day’s writing repeatedly or combing through it on subsequent passes until the prose shines in aureate resplendence.

I don’t like showing people my first drafts because they aren’t the best they can be after refining the prose to a jewel. But here is the start of the prologue to D65 in two forms.

Many of the masters of the craft shift things around or cut entire sections for the sake of the story.

Do I have instances where the first take is the best take? Oh, yeah. Of course.

This example was written on a day when I was burned out from other work, and then on a day when I was fresh on a subsequent draft pass.

Notice the opening I tried at the beginning had a deliberate contradiction in its facts. I thought it would make for a strong opening, but it doesn’t do what I want for the scene.

I relied on the chapter title to describe the setting for me, instead of using the prose to paint a picture.

The location is given through a chapter title, not the description. Here’s how I fixed this scene:

This is much better. And the main character is a television writer from LA, so the point of selling his soul to the industry comes from the opening line. The line about the skyscrapers gives a sudden contrast to grander themes. Which is the vantage point of glory? Is it heaven, or hell? This ambiguity fits the theme of Lucas feeling trapped in his life as a scriptwriter. The reader then must infer who is truly living and if Lucas feels dead.

The original opening? Made we want to persona myself (if you know what I mean). I can’t believe I had actually put that to text. This is why sleeping more than four hours is an amazing idea. Please, do that.

This next section needed to be condensed and to the point, but also tell a story. Nebulous amount of shots tells the drinking. But sometimes things can be told in a far better way. Like characterization. For example:

Now he’s drinking in the mountains, so we know he isn’t a stickler for the rules. The words his favorite Kentucky special show he drinks often. There is now contrast between his dismal existence as a writer and the freeing nature of the natural landscape also contrasted with Los Angeles. The description of the city as “active as an ant colony in the gloom of the June smog” paints a picture of a busy city with cars moving about on the streets. None of this exists in the original take.

“Causing him to unwind” is a double entendre for careful eyes. It means two different things at once, further characterizing Lucas as a writer about to have his mind unwind and also his relaxation through drinking his woes away.

I don’t personally believe in writer’s block, but I want to show him in a period of lacking inspiration here.

There is a vast difference in what I began with and what I ended up with. This still isn’t the final draft, but it shows why we should rewrite everything and take our time with our work to produce the best art we can.

Happy writing!