Friday, February 15, 2008

How Many Rewrites?

I had a nice post all typed a few days ago, went to submit it and Blogger was down. I'll try again!

I've got ten chapters done and am doing another rewrite. I'm taking out unnecessary words. Too many adverbs and adjectives. Too much redundancy. I'm not worrying about word count anymore, now it's quality of writing and the flow of the story. I am writing the purpose of each chapter in my notes. This has been very helpful to me. It keeps me on track with the storyline.

I think I'm going to stop after this rewrite and write the last chapter before I tackle more of the middle of the book. I like the beginning chapters. It's the middle I'm getting a little wishy washy with.

What has helped me tremendiously is Stephen King's book, On Writing. His "memoir of the craft" is dead on. I've read and reread it several times. This last time really hit home for me. I realized I was writing just to get words down. It was necessary for me as I had become so frozen with my writing but now it's time to clean it up, delete, and rewrite. Thank you, Mr. King.

How many rewrites is this? I've lost count. Let's say twelve, that sounds about right.

3 comments:

802 Rescue said...

I just now found your comment on my blog, several months later. A wonderful, unexpected present! And a delight to see your blog, as we have in common a love for writing. Best of luck to you in your publishing.

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