Restructuring and Rewriting

Restructuring and Rewriting

Emily Rigby

Girls Write Now Staff

Emily Rigby comes to Girls Write Now with a love of writing, meaningful experience developing curriculum for nonprofit organizations, and a long-held belief that there is no limit to the ways that people can express their thoughts and ideas. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and, as a member of the Girls Write Now team for the past four years, has excitedly shared her passion for stories in all forms.

Visit Profile

One of the most challenging parts of editing a piece is the psychological block that can sometimes arise when we begin to feel overwhelmed by the level of editing that might be needed. 

It takes a lot of time and energy to finish a draft of a project, whether that project is a poem, a screenplay, a novel, a memoir, an essay or something else – the dopamine hit that we get when we finish a draft feels lovely! We’ve written! We’ve used words to communicate our thoughts! We’ve done the thing we’ve been trying to do! And that accomplishment should absolutely be celebrated. Go forth and celebrate – have a little ‘finished the draft’ party for yourself; you did it!

And then, once your shiny, fabulous joy has had some time to be fully felt, take a deep breath. You’re entering a new creative stage. Now, you’re working on the next draft; maybe it’s your second, maybe it’s your fifteenth. The number doesn’t matter. What matters is your work and your connection to it.

How do I know if I need to write another draft?

This is a complicated question, and there’s unfortunately no universal answer. It largely depends on your goals for a particular piece and whether or not the piece is accomplishing what you want it to. Frequently, writers complete a draft of a piece, but they’re not fully happy with it for one reason or another – maybe they learned more about a character as they got deeper into the story and now feel like that character’s scenes need work early in the piece; maybe they feel like their lines or scenes do not currently connect or flow well; maybe they don’t really know what the precise issues are, but they have this gut feeling – something is off; it feels like there is still a gap between the way the writer envisions the piece in their mind and what is written.

That last feeling? It’s a tough feeling. But it’s also an important one. You’ve probably heard that the best writers are frequent readers – there’s a reason for that. Those that read often, particularly those that read frequently in the genre they are writing, will begin to establish that sense of a gap between their current draft and published work.

If you’re not sure if your piece needs editing, it’s time to read! Take a break from looking at your own work and turn to the work of others. Enjoy a novel written in the same genre as yours, parse through a screenplay of a recent film you’ve enjoyed, read an essay or memoir that captures the themes or ideas that you’re working with. Then do it again. And again. Keep reading, keep learning. Try to be open to the methods and tactics that other writers are using that make the piece impactful for you. And then, once you’ve given yourself some space from your own piece and are feeling inspired, it’s time to re-read your draft. 

This can be a wonderful experience (but it can also be deeply frustrating) – you probably won’t remember every beautiful line or witty bit of dialogue that you’ve created. Let yourself enjoy your work like a new reader would – do your best to experience the words as they are written as if you have not seen this piece before. In that mindset, you’ll be able to feel the areas that might need some work. That’s where the frustration can come in. 

You may find that entire scenes, chapters, poems, or characters are not working. Or perhaps they’re redundant – have you explained the same concept multiple times? Do you find yourself wanting to skip sections? If you’re working with a narrative, do the events of the story inform one another in a way that makes sense? Do events come out of nowhere? Do plot points fade away without resolution? Does it feel, at its core, like it’s as tight and sure of itself as the published works you’ve just read?

It’s okay if the answer is no. It’s really, really likely, in fact, that the answer is no – particularly if you’re reading a first draft. Take a deep breath. Welcome to editing; you’re going to be okay!

If the answer is yes – if you feel, at its core, like your piece is as tight and sure of itself as the published works you’ve read – incredible. It’s likely time to query or pursue publication in another way. You got this!

What edits do I need to make?

It can be incredibly useful to rely on others to help you determine if your piece needs some edits. We’ll discuss finding readers in the next lesson!

While you’ll get lots of ideas for edits from your readers, you may have your own ideas from reading through your draft – you can always list those out. Frame the edits in the way it makes the most sense for you, starting with any big picture or structural edits that you know you’d like to make – those will be the first things you’ll want to tackle as they will likely impact everything else. Then, you can list out smaller edits: scenes that might need to be made longer or shorter, extraneous characters who don’t quite fit in the story at the moment. 

Sometimes, writers will work on one particular editing focus at a time – for example, let’s say you have a ghost character in your story, and you want to make sure that ghost character functions consistently throughout the entire story. Maybe you go through the entire draft focused on a Ghost-Edit; you’re ignoring everything in the book other than the logistics of the ghost and making sure that they are consistent. 

Sometimes, writers want to map out their entire piece, making an outline of all the moments in their story and how they relate to each other. If you’re working on a narrative piece, this can be particularly helpful. You can write out each event in your story on a separate note card and then put them all in the order you’d like them to be in – noting, you may find yourself needing new scenes or finding that some existing scenes are no longer necessary. That’s fabulous – you’re figuring out the details of your next draft!

However you want to go about your edit, it’s important to make a plan. Going into the editing phase without action items can lead to a lot of overwhelming frustration. Some writers like to give themselves deadlines for different edits (ie, “I will have re-written this poem/scene by [INSERT DATE].”) Others like to create entire project plans or spreadsheets to track their progress – this can help create a sense of accomplishment as you embark on the editing process. No matter what your plan is, remember to give yourself grace and try to enjoy the progress of re-engaging with your work in a new way. 

Editing requires a lot of creative thought and stretching – this is a stage of dreaming and re-imagining, and every edit – whether they end up in the final draft or not – is beneficial to growing your craft.