5 stages of rewriting - with a toothbrush?

Re-writing is “like scrubbing the basement floor with a toothbrush." (Pete Murphy)

I am celebrating, because three weeks ago my task was to rewrite my teen thriller of nearly 30,000 words in 24,000 words without losing any of the plot or characterisation.  

I also had ten areas of doubt expressed by my editors to take into account. In my view, three weeks is not a realistic deadline for such an activity and I felt it was a good excuse for panic. 

Every writer has their own way of dealing with that kind of panic. In case it's helpful for my readers to know, mine involved the following stages:

1
Make a copy of the 'original' to work on. File the original.
Start slowly on page 1, take into account: 
-   the editors' doubts/comments
-   the removal of as many characters as possible (I have a tendency to include lots of 'bit parts')
-   these questions at each 'scene change': 
    What is this scene for? 
    What are the motives of each of the characters in it? 
    How does it progress the plot?
-   Check the details. Use the toothbrush. Don't panic.
2
This slow revision gave me a good idea where conversations or actions could be squeezed or dispensed with altogether (the ones that had to go were, as always, the ones I loved most).  Change the text colour of these passages.
3
Print out and go through again, rewriting the coloured bits (for me this is much easier on paper).
4
Go through again on screen and incorporate the rewritten bits. The main problem at this stage was remembering what was still in the plot/characterisation and what had been ditched. 
5
Go through again (!), trying to read it as a reader would, who knew nothing of the story. I was looking for any unexplained motives or non sequiturs in the plot.

And, after 21 days of being convinced there was no way I could pull it off, I sent off the new draft manuscript by email at the weekend. 

Phew! Panic over. Basement floor (almost) pristine. Toothbrush thrown away. (Thanks, Pete)

horses on Solway sands

Now I have emerged from my three weeks of self-inflicted solitude (with a couple evenings off to see friends and a walk on the beach nearly every day). 

skeins of geese flying north up Solway coast
(they are there, in the pale blue bit of sky!)

And the sun is shining (this is the Cumbrian riviera, don't forget!), the geese are arriving, and the pigeons are cooing. The garden is full of snowdrops and the fields of lambs. 





Just in time! This weekend Words by the Water begins in Keswick (I am chairing four of the author talks) and The Boy with Two Heads is a year old! 

Life is amazing ...

The Olympic Torch on Midsummer's Day

Almost as soon as I got back from Greece, the Olympic Torch came through Cumbria. Connie of Trifolium Books had arranged for me to do some signings on its route.


The first was at the Wordsworth Bookshop and Coffee House in Penrith. It was sunny and people were out on the forecourt as well as inside at the tables. My thanks to Jon for his careful preparations and for spoiling us with a delicious lunch. 

We moved on to Carlisle to Bookends, where Gwenda Matthews had created a sporty window display with The Boy with Two Heads as the centrepiece (see Connie's blog). There we watched the Torch come through. After many sponsors' vehicles and police cars and bikes had passed, we actually saw one of the handovers when the next runner lights his/her torch from the previous runner's.

There were trampoliners (is that the word?) flying high, taut and graceful, and gymnasts bursting with energy in the pedestrian precinct, and quite a large crowd. 








Next day we were at the Fountain Gallery in Wigton where we were visited by Rory Stewart, the local MP. I signed a copy of The Boy for him and he took one of each of Connie's other books, which are on sale there every day. It was wet, though, and the crowd did not gather until just before the Torch was due. 

The street is narrower than the Carlisle precinct and there were no barriers. 

The outriding police bikes came close enough to the crowd to high-five some of them. Everyone enjoyed that, and there were those who climbed onto the monument for a better view ... The actual run with the Torch seemed to last only a few seconds once all the other vehicles had gone. So a damp but enthusiastic passage.


And our thanks to Beatfords Tearoom in Cockermouth, for our 'pitch' there later in the afternoon. The carnival on Main Street was in full swing when we left, some time before the Torch was due.




[In preparing this posting, I have spent far too long watching the BBC Torch relay site. It really is well done, covers every moment of the whole procession from the first moment until now, and is easy to navigate. There are, of course, long bits of video of the road journeys - rather like some of the videos I make on holiday!]