Starting first Rewrite

[macleod0420]

First I want to thank you all for saving me from myself. I started my first novel without really thinking that the length would inhibit my getting published. 100k words into what I had planned to be 200k word story, I read on another thread in this forum that long first novels were very difficult to have published and now I see the reasons why. With that in mind I finished the story in 150k words. I have since cut 60k words from the body and come up with what I think is a solid rough draft.

Following all of the work I have put in, and I'm sure many of you can understand how much hard work that was, I am ready to start my first of several rewrites. My question for any who have experience with such is this:

What are some rewrite techniques that may help with my story streamlining?

Are there any rewriting techniques that you can help me with?

Is 110k words too many for a new writer to have published on a first story?

Please help with any information you all may have on how to be successful when turning a rough story into something that may be appealing to publishers.

[LordKyleOfEarth]

It is by no means a comprehensive list, but the 7 points focused on during critique week make for a pretty good self-check list during proofs/rewrites. For sanity I'll repost them here:


Commonly confused words - Check for common spelling errors (there/their, passed/past, affect/effect, etc) people miss these more often than you may realize, and their spellcheckers are powerless to save them.

Narrative angle and distance - Does the narrative style work for the story? Would a different POV work better? Is the narrator too close or too far removed from the action?

Dialog - Are conversations natural? Is the author Walloftexting?

Language - Does the story contain language that does not fit the characters or that seems awkward ($5 words and foreign languages can fall in this category)

Pace/Tension/Flow - Does the story progress at a rate that is appropriate to the style? Are there scenes which are too intense (or not intense enough)?

Tense - Big one here. Is the story told form a consistent tense, or is the author switching between past/present/future constantly?

Depth check - How deep are the characters and plot? Are they shallow and '2D' or fully thought out and real?


Good luck to you and I'm glad you have been able to make such a great cut (60k words!) already. It's amazing how much extra crap we can cram into a story isn't it?

[macleod0420]

Thank you for the help. I think I have done a decent job so far with tense and grammar. I think my dialogue is strong in some places and needs work in others.

I will confess that this being my first novel, I changed a major theme in my plot line half way through and so much of the cutting I did was to make way for rewriting the opening to fit with the theme. I will not make the same mistake with my second novel. I'm at 91k words now and will hopefully finish with about 110k.

Thanks again.

[Leonardo Pisano]

It is by no means a comprehensive list, but the 7 points focused on during critique week make for a pretty good self-check list during proofs/rewrites.

Great, Lord. Helpful to me as a newbe too!


Good luck to you and I'm glad you have been able to make such a great cut (60k words!) already. It's amazing how much extra crap we can cram into a story isn't it?

Cutting is easier than adding. However, easier said than done as in some text you need to cut has been put so much efforts - then it feels like if you cut off a finger! My two cents: check if you REALLY NEED the text to understand the message. Often the reverse question helps (at least me): what if this text would NOT be IN? Does it add value at all?

[Elgaisma]

To be honest I do literally rewrite find it quicker than editing.

I find it helps so that where I have tweaked, changed and reordered the plot the story flows better.

Then I go through getting the words and flow write. Adding any missed dialogue beats and descriptions. Maybe the odd contemplation scene.added. Also I make a spreadsheet to keep my timeline in order.

Finally I do punctuation.