Jeff Edsell writes to ask…
I had a question about writing and revision. If I look over something I've written and I'm not happy with it, I have a lot of trouble deciding whether I should dig in and try to revise it and make it better, or to virtually crumple up the page and start over from scratch. Are there any rules of thumb you use to determine the best route?
Well, it depends on if I know why I'm not happy with it. There are an infinite number of reasons possible but there are two that stand out above all others.
One is that I've tried to wedge a good story into a bad place. That's a mistake that I believe has led to some of the poorest writing I've done. I had what I thought was a real good idea..and let's say it was for a comic book story. Suddenly, I was asked to write an eight-page story for something and I decided to use that real good idea for it. As I wrote, I slowly realized eight pages wouldn't do justice to the idea but I stubbornly pressed on, leaving out every part of it I could possibly leave out and rushing every speech and action.
The end result? I wrote a pretty poor story…and worse, I wasted that good idea. After that, I couldn't go back the next month and redo it at the proper length. Those instances hurt a lot.
So when I'm not happy with how a script or article is going, I ask myself if what I have is a good story in a bad place and if so, I save that idea for another time and try to come up with something else and start anew. That can be tough when you have six days to write a story and you've wasted three or four of them writing the wrong story. Just remember it's easier to recover from staying up all night writing than it is to recover from publishing a stinker.
This problem also happens when your story is too short to fill the allotted space. And sometimes in the middle of writing something, I start feeling, "You know, this wasn't such a great idea after all." I have a folder on my hard disk called "Unfinished Posts." It's full of things I started writing for this blog and a few paragraphs into them, I started thinking, "No one's going to care about this…even I'm losing interest in it."
Into that folder it goes. I sometimes go back through them later and find some way to make one interesting. That's usually done by lopping off a few paragraphs at the end and plotting another course from a wrong turn. But a lot of what goes into that folder never comes out because it wasn't worth finishing. I do not concur with writing teachers who teach that you must finish what you start. It's better to admit when you've had a lousy idea and see if you can come up with a good one instead.
If that's not the problem…if the piece does seem worthy, look back for the wrong turn you made. You introduced a new plot point that knocks the story off-balance — or worse, isn't necessary at all. Playwrights who have to keep the cast size down for budgetary reasons usually go over their later drafts and ask of each character, "Is there a way to cut this role?" If there is, you usually should.
Also, if something I'm writing isn't working and time permits, I like to put it aside, write something else for a bit and then go back to the story that isn't working. Sometimes, the solution is so obvious, you'll actually slap your forehead with the palm of your hand.
But try anything. Write anything. Sometimes, exploring further in the wrong direction can make it more obvious as to why it's the wrong direction. Go back to the last time a major character had to make a major choice…and then have him or her make the other choice and see where that takes you. The point is to keep writing and, one hopes, keep thinking. And don't panic. Just remember that if it's unfixable and has to be junked, you're still ahead of writers who refused to do that and instead, put out something awful.
