Hot rewrite summer
How it felt to do a full rewrite of a novel for the first time, and how I approach it now.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the unmoored summer of my first full rewrite. I found myself suddenly unemployed and moving at the same time (out of the spider apartment!) It was the first time since college that I was simultaneously changing where I was going to live and uncertain about what I was going to do. Things felt so weightless and open-ended as I sat with cardboard boxes piled high around me right before moving out, watching the ceiling fan spin in the humid air, filled with profound anxiety.
That weightless feeling shook something loose for me, maybe. After I moved, I thought: Okay, while I look for a new job, I'm going to do a full rewrite on the first novel I wrote, the one I thought had flopped in the query trenches. That book—about two mixed Southeast Asian diaspora teens named Deedee and Jay, who meet in the wee hours for secret driving lessons while different family pressures are keeping them up at night—is going to be my debut novel in the fall next year (ahh!)
I thought that story was shelved and done for, for a minute there. But working on another novel (which, maybe ironically, is actually shelved now) after that one gave me some new ideas to take back to it. I’d never done a full rewrite before and didn’t exactly understand what it entailed, but I knew Emily X.R. Pan had done them, and it sounded good to me.
At the same time, I had this nagging uncertainty: Is this book just too quiet, not hooky enough, too hard to pitch? Is it even worth it to revise it? I had another story idea brewing then too, and I loved drafting, the freedom of it and the feeling of discovery. (I did at that time, anyway. Now I find drafting kind of excruciating, but I'm longing to get back to that place at some point. We can hope!)
But I had two main thoughts, pushing their way to the surface when I lay in bed half asleep: I love these characters so much, I'm willing to tear this story apart to give them their best chance. And even if this isn't the book, it will probably be a good experience to try to do a full rewrite. Even if it doesn't work out, I'll get something out of it. It will teach me something about how to revise.
The story was too cluttered, so I re-plotted it. I hadn't looked at the draft in a while, and without rereading it yet, I tried to remember the most essential events, write a new outline based on those and cut the rest of what I couldn't remember. I filled my notes app with chaotic new ideas, used post-its to map out the story fresh. I journaled about the themes, who the characters were and how they change, their wounds, misbeliefs, strengths, flaws.
I didn't quite know what I was doing. I mostly had Susan Dennard blog posts and things said in passing on podcasts to guide me. I kind of didn't think I'd be able to pull it off, but I also thought: If I suspend my disbelief and put some irrational faith in this process, if I trust in the concept of a full rewrite, that opens up so many possibilities. I can change literally anything about the story, no doors are closed, it can all be new. That sense of possibility permeated everything, when I'd get up early and sit down to write. That's something I miss now, that I want to remember and capture again.
And the draft that came out of this rewrite was so different than the versions before that. It shifted from distant third person to close first, the prose leveled up, and Deedee's voice started to emerge. I cut out several characters and subplots, fleshed out the main plot points, added more tension, leaned into the romance. When I finished, it definitely wasn't right (I had a lot to learn!) But I was closer, and more of the potential shined through—enough that my Pitch Wars mentors could see something in it and decided to take a chance on me.
Now I’m at the daydreaming stage before a full rewrite again, with a new story. I have a messy zero/first draft that I haven't looked at in a few months, that literally only two other people have seen so far. I set it aside for a bit to get some distance, and now I'm starting to think about what else it could be.
So I'm extra nostalgic for that summer right now, and that feeling. Sitting at the computer early in the morning, heart in my throat, humid air and glowing screen, hoping so much it ached. Not knowing what I was doing, but filled with a sense of promise and longing for the story, for a better version that could do justice to the characters and that potential. One that resembled the way it made me feel, more than the imperfect attempt on the page.
How I brainstorm before starting a full rewrite
If you made it this far, I'm guessing you might be a writer interested in some practical takeaways. I went back and forth about giving craft advice in this newsletter (a lot of publishing is luck and timing, I’m not an authority on anything but my own experience, etc etc.) But, I don't know, I feel like novel revision is a generally life-affirming topic that I have a lot of thoughts about, so I might as well share them.
(Of course, the usual disclaimers apply: your mileage may vary; everyone's brain is different and a big part of writing and revising a novel is learning to work with, not against, yourself; this is just what worked for me so far, take what you like and leave the rest!)
There are a lot of moving parts to a full rewrite, for me, so I'm probably going to break up describing how I approach them over the course of a few newsletters. Right now I'm going to focus on what I do in the early twilight stages—that brainstorming, daydreaming part. Since that first time, I've adjusted my process a lot, but much about that daydreaming stage has stayed the same.
* I try to make forgetting work for me. Before I reread the draft, I write down from memory what about the story stayed with me. I do a lot of journaling and ask myself: What was it like in your head? What was most vivid to you? How did it feel? When you read the pitch now, what do you anticipate, what promise do you see there?
Thinking about that before I dive in again helps me identify the gap between how the book felt in my head and how it actually is on the page. When I'm drafting, I tell myself my main goals are to be free with it, to fall in love with it, and to finish. But in the thick of trying to finish, I'll do things just because I'm tired or can't think of a better solution right then, and I don't have to be tied to those choices the next time around.
* I read it through with an eye toward what's working and what I want to bring out more. What are my favorite elements? What is the heart of the story? What are the promising seeds? (When I was revising with my agent, later, we were talking about a relationship dynamic I needed to strengthen, and she said, "You’ve already planted those seeds, so let's water them and see where it goes.” I still think about that all the time—that idea of seeds of possibility present in a flawed draft.)
There are so many layers to a novel, it's pretty impossible to get them all right and working well together on the first try. Like, seriously—plot mechanics, pacing, scene construction, characterization, emotional arcs, setting, world-building (in contemporary too!), theme, voice, interiority, dialogue, physical action, sensory detail, the hook, the vibes. There is a lot going on! (And for all the jokes about "no plot, just vibes," I maintain that vibes are nothing to sneeze at. Strong vibes helped propel me through multiple full rewrites, each of which layered in more plot).
Each layer is such a big emotional and mental lift, getting just a few of them kind of right on the first draft is a real accomplishment. (And I figure, if you feel like a failure until all the layers are completely right, the experience of working on a novel is really going to fray your nerves.) So I try to take stock, at the start of a big revision, of the parts I love the most so far and how I could bring them out more.
* I look for things later in the book that should move earlier. I draft using an outline, but I discover a lot about the story and characters as I go along, anyway, despite my best intentions. There will usually be a lot concentrated toward the end that should be infused in the story from the beginning, or that at least needs more setup in Act I. (I only realized a pretty fundamental thing about Jay toward the very end of the second full rewrite. Rude of him not to tell me earlier, honestly!)
So I go through the manuscript in a Google Doc and make a lot of "move this up" "introduce this earlier" "rework the beginning around this" comments. Later I'll turn those into a to-do list of things to set up earlier as I go through and rewrite.
* I think about what's not working, brainstorm lots of different possible ideas for what to do about it, then weigh them against each other and see how they feel.
If I've had people read it, I'll review all their feedback, maybe consolidate and organize it, and give myself a few days to digest. But if it's really early and I haven't had anyone look at it yet, I'll free-write about what I think isn't quite right with the manuscript, and then start coming up with ideas around that. That's what I'm doing right now, mainly because I know there's a lot I could do to improve what I have, and I want to save the first impression I give early readers for a better version than this. I've only had a couple friends do a positivity pass so far, while I was in the middle of drafting and getting discouraged (and it gave me the energy to finish, would highly recommend!)
At this stage I try to be open and generate as many ideas as I can, then see what sticks. I'll ask myself a lot of "What if?" questions to keep myself as untethered to the current form of the story as possible, try on each of those possibilities and see what feels more emotionally satisfying or more resonant with the themes I was going for, then narrow it down.
* I journal about who the characters are, how they all relate to each other, what their emotional journeys should be over the course of the book, what the themes are and how their arcs can relate to those themes. Especially since I'm writing character-driven contemporary YA, this kind of character work is my favorite way to get ideas I can use to re-plot the book.
After this brainstorming stage, I'll bring in SPREADSHEETS and organize all the wild scattered thoughts I've come up with here into a more concrete revision plan. But I'll save that part for a future newsletter!
Thanks for reading <3
Love always,
Clare