Welcome to the Rewrite It Club!
National Novel Writing Month is over, and whether you wrote a thousand words or a hundred thousand, you’ve now got something tangible in your hands that may need a little finesse. Writing is hard, but somewhere after those first words and muddled between critiques and edits is what we like to call the rewrite.
It doesn’t mean you throw all your words out the window and start fresh, but take those tangible pieces, dig deep into the elements, and revise for content, flow and structure. It’s where you get to answer the question “why?”
We know our characters, we can tell you their likes and dislikes, their quirks and they’re motivations. But can you tell a reader why?
Why is your main character on the path they’re on? Why did they just make their specific decision? Why does it matter to them?
Writer Jen Davenport and I have become a bit obsessed with this question and how it pertains to our own stories and the ones we both read and critique, which is what sparked the idea of a #RewriteItClub: a water cooler space where writers can talk and work together to hammer down those large revisions.
So why are we kicking off this idea? Nano may be over, but winter is the perfect time to rewrite those stories and get them ready for 2019. While everyone is using the end of the year to reorganize and prepare for the new year, we should do the same. Reorganize our stories. Rewrite our babies. So we can tell the world in 2019 WHY our characters want a place on your bookshelf.
If you’re rewriting your story or just want to hang out with other writers, join us for weekly writing prompts this winter to help you take your story to the next level. Join us on the Twitter hashtag #RewriteItClub.
