First Rewrites

Everyone has a different writing process, and today I want to talk about part of mine. This part of the process is the first rewrite. To lift the veil a little bit, the reason this part is on my mind right now is because it is what I’m currently working through on another project.

I write outlines. I have a clear idea of the beginning, the middle, and the end before I ever write the first line. I know generally who the characters are, and what I want them to go through. But I leave the details open. There is just as much left that I don’t know as what I do know when I begin, and because of this I end up discovering who the characters are from the writing itself. Sometimes I begin thinking the theme is vaguely related to one thing, only to realize three quarters through that it is actually closer to something else. And of course, so many of the little moments, be they jokes, or action beats, or whatever else, only come through in the heat of the moment of writing.

It is because of this that the first rewrite to me is one of the most essential parts of the entire process. It is extremely rare that I let anyone, even those closest to me, see a true first draft. Even in my own numbering process for all the saves on my computer, the first draft is always “0.0”, and the first rewrite is draft “1.0”.

When I finish a first draft, I like to put it aside for a little while to give myself a break from the story so later I can look at it in a more, hopefully, objective way. Sometimes this might only be a week, in the case of the project I am working on now, it’s been three months. Then, the first step is to just read it through and discover what exactly it needs. A lot of what it needs becomes obvious, as there will usually be things I’ve written into the ending that needs more set up in the beginning, or maybe a character trait that only begins some portion of the way through. I also tend to either overwrite or underwrite in a first draft, so the rewrite can end up being a lot of deleting or adding depending on which case it may be.

My usual process on this first rewrite is mostly clean up duty. Things like fixing up the dialogue to make it all make the most sense it can. Because of this, I generally work from the original document, making changes as I go. There are times where I feel like a story is too far gone, in those times I’ll do a heavier rewrite and start a brand-new document. When those cases come up, usually I have both the old draft and the new one up on separate windows and treat the old one like a heavily detailed outline.

The project I’ve been working on is a writing sample, a sitcom pilot to be more exact. This first episode comes down to the lead character trying to start a business with three friends, and it quickly becoming obvious they all have different ideas about how it should work. She quits, only to realize that she is making the wrong move and all their different ideas could come together in a unique way. Corny, but I swear it is funnier in full thing!

Anyway, in the very first scene, I had them all arguing about something fully unrelated. At first, this was a joke. It was a way to introduce the characters and get a few laughs. I was so close to it, only thinking about this one scene, that I didn’t see how it could, and should, fit into the bigger picture. If everyone takes a different side on the argument, and rather than her fighting to win it, she just quits, deciding it isn’t worth it, than she is establishing a pattern in herself by the time it happens again. In this we can start to see her choice at the end to come back and work with them is growth on her part. When it comes down to it, that’s what a story is, a character learning to grow.

I have other things going on that need to be fixed, but this is a prime example of what this first rewrite is to me. It also doesn’t hurt that it was the last thing I was working on before writing this post, making it very on my mind.

Anyway, that’s at least sort of an overview into my writing process in the time of the first rewrite. To me it’s the most important part, especially right now while I’m in the middle of it.