The inevitable part of the writing process is rewrites. This task is as sure a thing as death, taxes and student nurses ( or so I'm told). The monumental feat of completing the first draft of a novel is an amazing accomplishment in itself. I know that each time I have reached this milestone I feel a euphoria that must be akin to what a climber feels after scaling Everest. This joy is short lived though, as quickly follows the dreaded rewrite.
There are writers out there who rewrite as they are going along, slaving over every single sentence until it is perfect, if you are that kind of writer then I have little advice I can give you, as working that way is not in my genetic make up. I write in a continuous splurge until that first draft is complete. I never re read anything until the draft is complete. I feel that this offers the best way to get the out, but it leaves you with a lot of tidying to do in the re write. Problems I have found are as big as a minor characters name changing half way through the book, times being completely out and details being different in different places.
As a few examples, in my latest novel (The Wilds, which is nearly completed now) I have a character who is originally called Harold, then for no good reason becomes Daniel. A character agrees to meet another at 8:30 in one chapter, in the next it is 10:30. My personal favourite is that a murder weapon changes from a knife to a hammer after the crime.
You will read all kinds of advice on rewriting your work, there are entire books dedicated to foolproof systems for these kind of revisions. Most suggest that you do several passes. One for plot point, one for consistency of tense, and one for spelling and grammar. Sound laborious doesn't it?
Well fear not here is the system I use. This takes at most two passes, but be warned you need a pretty good memory, or solid note taking skills, I have the former certainly not the latter.
Step 1
Print the manuscript out, in a nice clear font, well spaced and easy to read. This sounds obvious, but a lot of people will just read it on a computer screen, but for me the ver fact it is on paper, a material thing I can hold, makes me pay more attention.
Step 2
Here is the tough part, you go through the manuscript a page at a time, reading each sentence carefully. Have a coloured pen, red stands out the best but anything but black will suffice. On the manuscript I will cross out things I want to cut, change words or names as applicable, modify sentences to make them stronger and so on. If there is something I want to add in, I place a number next to the place I want it to go, then on the back of that page I write the number, and the. Write the additional material long hand. If this takes more than one sheet I add the extra sheets to the manuscript after that page.
Step 3
With that all out of the way I got back to the computer and make all of the corrections to the file and add in the extra material, as I have already written it out long hand, this is merely a typing exercise.
Step 4
Rest for at least a few days
Step 5
Print out the rewrite, or 2nd draft if you prefer, exactly as you did the first time. Read it through. If you are happy with it move on to step six, if not repeat step 2 -4.
Step 6
I am useless at picking up my own spelling and grammatical errors, though very good at spotting other peoples. So at this point I hand the manuscript over to at least two people and ask them to proof it, when I have there copies back I make the corrections that are needed.
Step 7
If you are in the position to do this step I highly recommend it, send the work to a professional editor. They will find the myriad of mistakes that your, and your first readers, untrained eyes have missed. I cannot stress enough the value of doing this. With my first novel 'Beneath' I published without doing this step and my initial batch of reviews pointed out that it was a good story, but that it was let down by the plethora of spelling and grammatical errors. This led to some low scoring reviews, which could have seriously damaged my reputation as a writer. Luckily I found a wonderful editor, who is very meticulous in her job. She edited 'Beneath' for its 2nd edition, and also my short story collection 'Dark County' and will soon be working on 'The Wilds'.
This is not a foolproof system, I offer no gaur tees that it will work for you, but for me this is the only way I can do my revisions. If at least one person find this approach helpful I will be happy.
