Not every draft is a winner. Much as we would all like them to be, sometimes it helps putting a pin in a project and shelving it for a bit for some perspective.
That being said, one should always return to the pile when it comes to time to put together a new project. Revitalizing old content isn’t only about remembering the fun of writing the work to begin with, but also about building up those editing muscles necessary to self-edit every project.
Revitalizing Old Content
It can be as simple as a tweak or a directional shift in the narrative to straighten it out. Other times it can be a complete rewrite. I’ve had the pleasure of both experiences.
The Medusa Coin was a complete rewrite. I had a draft that worked, functionally at least, but nothing sang to me. There were flaws, perspective shifts, absent character moments, and the like. About halfway through reading it prior to the edit I realized it was not up to snuff. At all.
A hard reset…
It’s not fun to do. Not fun to envision when it comes to this project you’ve slaved over for months if not years. However, it is a necessary evil in the business. So how do you start from scratch?
You don’t.
Pull out the pieces that fit. Plot beats that advance the story, character moments that propel the protagonist along their arc, whatever small speck of sanity in the chaos of your draft and put it in one pile.
Throw the rest in another. You won’t be needing them.
Read the work again. Think about what works and why. Keep the best and discard the rest.
When you’re through you have scraps of the story you originally told and hopefully some sense of the connective tissue necessary to rebuild the manuscript. Notecards are a great visual aid for this process. One color per event/sequence or one for each character tends to help loads in these situations.
Fill in the blanks. If you find separate events not meshing well with the overall map being built in your mind, rework them. Pull them apart and put them back together again. Mix up characters in situations.
For The Medusa Coin, the original draft called for Ruiz to be near death at the hands of the Charon. In the updated version it is Loren. Why? Twofold. I needed to show Soriya the consequence of her decisions. Secondly, Ruiz was hurt pretty bad and had a visit with the hospital in Signs of Portents. I definitely wanted to switch it up.
That little switch opened up small moments for the characters that didn’t exist in the previous draft. Tension builders for Loren scenes and fallout for Soriya’s arc in the novel. One that served as the foundation for a wider arc that could not have happened with the original draft.
Small tweaks. The better path.
Revitalizing old content doesn’t have to be a hard reset. It can be a small change, a shift in perspective, a switch in events and how they play out. Tossing out a draft for not working isn’t the answer – understanding the problems within the narrative and sussing them out is the key.
The project I am currently working on is one of those. The first book in the series deals with a character being sentenced for a crime committed. How those events played out is one of the items that made me shelve the project. So I pulled it out, figured out why I disliked the sequence and am currently drafting a new sequence that fits with the overall narrative as it has evolved in my head.
Will that be the end of my edits? Hell, no. There are six or seven more instances of this in the book that I’ve laid out in pretty pink and purple notecards to solve over the next few weeks.
It’s a good exercise for those fighting with structure, those that find editing to be a chore rather than another skill set to use in the writing process. (myself included…)
Never throw anything out! Everything can be used, everything has merit. Pull it out of the drawer and find it.
Thanks for reading.
