When is Rewriting Writing?

Of course rewriting is writing, but is the real writing in the rewrites? In a long work, maybe or maybe not so much. I'm one who writes an article in my head before I commit it to paper or bits. Granted, I couldn't do this with a book-length piece. However, I learned long ago in watercolor painting to get it almost perfect the first time, otherwise you "make mud." Watercolor is a very unforgiving art medium requiring planning before painting.

In writing shorts, the skills of brevity, concision, and picking exactly the right word might emphasize the rewrite. (Just think of Twitter!) The shorter the piece, the easier it is to be misunderstood, hence the most urgent need for clarity. But with a book, especially a novel, some urge you to vomit out the first draft; all the art is in the rewriting, they say, which is more than simply refining. How could it go wrong? Just listen to what Anne Rice has to say:



How many time has a writer outlined (maybe only roughly) a novel and then had one of the characters "simply run away" with the plot? Incidentally, that kind of thinking is as surely a crutch, a rationalization, as saying you couldn't help hitting someone because they "made me mad." Who is in charge of your [writing] behavior? Where does the story come from? You are responsible for both.

Don't write to "see where the story goes," and then moan about being unable to finish anything or having writer's block. Maybe you wrote yourself into a blind alley! Get the story straight before you write the manuscript. If "outline" is too mechanical a term for you to apply to creative writing, how about "framework?" Still too concrete? Try this: write the synopsis before you write the book. This will probably force you to research only necessary parts, too. Then you will not only have completed the most difficult writing of all, you'll also have a "literary guide" to "just write the damn thing!"

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