How many times should an author go through a read/rewrite process?
The best way to answer this is to pose another question. Is there anything about the manuscript that seems out of place, cumbersome, or was written with a “They’ll know what I mean” attitude?
There is no “They’ll know what I mean”. The reader won’t know. Or, if they realize an author’s intent but don’t see it expressed in the pages, the work might be labeled ham-handed and poorly written.
I’ve purchased books by celebrated authors and couldn’t bring myself to read past the first one hundred pages. My exact thoughts were “This is crap” and “They had a high school freshman write this, didn’t bother to edit it, and then slapped their own name on the cover to connive money out of everybody’s pocket.”
It’s better to delete a scene or a plot twist than to alienate readers. Those unwieldy plot twists and extra scenes, the ones we fell in love with when we wrote them, often come from subjective knowledge. My post from June 11th, “Passified Steel and the 5.3-million-dollar box of donuts”, touches on this subject.
If something feels wrong it probably is. But how can the author fix the problem? What if they fell in love with this unwieldy bit of prose as they wrote it and don’t want to let it go? It’s always better to remove a scene and suggest the notion in narrative.
Make notes on what felt a bit odd, wrong, or out of place. Become a reader once more instead of a writer. This might take days and it might take weeks, but it needs to be done.
A writer knows his or her owns flaws. Look for them. Is a notion repeated over and over using a variety of synonyms? Are there too many details given on minor subjects. Is the writer so averse to “he said/ she said” they will do anything to avoid it? Does the novel translate as a Sergio Leone “Spaghetti Western” from the 1960’s with a continual montage of facial expressions – cutting of eyes, smirks, etc.
The writer must be comfortable with what they’ve written. This goes back to the target audience. Most readers of a genre are tolerant of minor flaws if the story makes sense and flows.
Most writers self-publish. They don’t have to pass inspection by an agent or professional editor, but this shouldn’t excuse them from putting out their best work.
My Click Here post is a section from Brettinger. It had been written as two separate scenes with a combined twenty pages. I chose to rewrite these scenes as a short bit of narrative that I believe helped the flow of the book. I hope you enjoy.
*Note Some Click Here documents have been removed from the queue. Click on Contact Me from the home page or the site navigation icon in the upper right of this page and request and items that might have been removed. Thanks for reading.