How to Stop Worrying and Love the Rewrite - Part 1

Twenty filmmakers, authors, and comic book writers from around the globe weigh in about how they self-edit and find their stories' true identities

There’s a saying that most storytellers will hear throughout their lives: writing is rewriting. I’ve never been able to source this quote conclusively — Ernest Hemingway often gets the credit — but I suspect it’s a sentiment that’s been around since at least the time of Aeschylus. That’s because it’s true.

However, the art of revision — self-editing or rewriting — remains a deeply subjective aspect of our craft and so, like most everything about the arts, we all develop different tools, philosophies, and practices to accomplish the exact same thing.

Which is, of course, to wrestle a story into submission, to make it cry out for mercy after torturing you for so long, and to feel gloriously satisfied as you type FINAL DRAFT into the file name. Hahaha, you fucker, I beat you!

Wait…am I the only one who feels that way?

Okay, fine, let’s put it another, more serene way: the goal of revision is to discover your story’s true identity.

This month, I invited a cast of brilliant professional artists to weigh in on this subject. You might recall, that I did something similar in January with the article “How To Survive The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Life Of An Artist”. This is going to be a monthly thing at 5AM StoryTalk throughout 2024 and perhaps beyond.

Here’s how I worded my question to them:

There are many theories about how to tackle a first draft, from strict outlining, to pantsing it (as the British say about making it up as you go along), to vomit drafts that begin with an outline but incorporate every whim you have along the way to discover characters and plot. Let’s talk about rewriting, though. What is your approach to finding your story’s true identity in all the work you put into that first draft?

But as it turns out, I got too many responses, perhaps because it was a subject so many were excited to discuss. Consequently, I had to break what was meant to be a single article featuring twenty-five artists down into two parts and seek out a few more opinions to flesh both out - with twenty artists now featured in each.

Below you’ll find the first twenty responses I received from forty filmmakers, novelists, and comic book writers/artists. In all cases, they are professional artists - many operating at the very tippy-top of their game. In addition to the various mediums they work in, they represent a diverse range of voices and cultural backgrounds from across the globe including the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Spain, and Australia. Hopefully, their perspectives and experiences will be of some help to you wherever you are on your own creative journey.

You can find Part 2 and the second twenty responses to this question here.

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PAUL WEITZ (screenwriter/director, ABOUT A BOY)

I remember the first time my brother and I handed in a draft of our first professional screenplay job, the producer told us the plot was “specious.” I went and looked up what “specious” meant (it wasn’t good). The first thought that crossed my mind was “Holy shit, I can’t do this.” The second thought was, “But I can’t do anything else.” The third thought was, “I am going to unleash a reign of terror on this script.” Which I did. In rewriting, a reign of terror is always an option.  

The first draft tends to be the favorite child, but why should it be? As in economics, there is a tendency to give weight to sunken costs which are in the past and are unrecoverable. Frankly, the fun of writing is in losing yourself in the story, and yes, there are times when a jeweler’s eyepiece is required, but it’s a bit more fun to break out the machete.  

Paul is a U.S.-based filmmaker.

NICHOLAS MEYER (screenwriter/director, STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY)

How do you fall asleep? Some do face plants into a pillow; others lie on their backs or sides. Some wear nose clips or face masks. Maybe use pills. There's probably as many ways to create (in this case write) as there are creators. There's no "right way". We all have our little quirks. I expect there are two principle methods of creativity; let's call them the Mozart method and the Beethoven method. 

For Mozart, the writing all takes place in his head. Mozart said that writing music for him was like peeing, i.e. a natural function. Mozart composed in his head while shooting pool and afterwards copied out what he'd "written" inside his head. Mozart manuscripts, (like Arthur Conan Doyle's - the creator of Sherlock Holmes), show very few corrections. They emerge like Athena, full-blown from the brain of Zeus.  

For Beethoven, on the other hand, we have only to look at his sketch books to see the whole process tortuously externalized, a process of endless experimentation, alteration and revision. Some of these sketchbooks look like a demented chicken crossing the road.  

I suspect for most of the rest of us, some amalgam of the two methods applies. I do a lot of writing in my head, but then I write down in a notebook, various items that occurred there - a line, a plot point, scene. In my experience, outlines are only useful to a point, like a roadmap compiled by Triple A - but what happens, if following the map down the road, you see something kind interesting off to one side? Something that wasn't on the map (outline). No way or time to take a detour and see if that something might be useful? Pretty boring road trip. I do a lot of "composing" when drifting off to sleep - or waking up. Two of the best books on creating are FINISHING THE HAT and LOOK, I MADE A HAT, both by Stephen Sondheim.  At one point, he says, if you have the urge to lie down, don't fight it - that's oftentimes where the ideas come. For some, it's sitting in a warm bath. Face plant? Nose clips? Sleep mask? It's whatever gets you there.

Nick is a U.S.-based filmmaker and novelist. You can read my artist-on-artist conversation with him here.

MICHELE MULRONEY (screenwriter, SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS)

Over twenty-plus years of sitting down to rewrite my own and other writers' work, I have always focused on clarity of intention as a primary goal. From the macro to the micro - what's the narrative intention of this story, this scene, this line of dialogue, this word? If I can't answer that, then I am usually spinning my wheels and struggling to find the story's true identity. 

I love a good, messy vomit draft! I rarely outline and prefer to follow the "what should happen next?" free-form method of writing. But even in that very loose approach, I am always looking for clarity. And once I have that clarity of intention, it's about precision of execution, of course. Easier said than done, but definitely more possible if you've put in the time to pursue clarity as a core goal. With every scene, I have to be able to complete the simple sentence: "This is a scene in which ________."  If I can't do that, it means either the scene shouldn't be there at all or I am not yet clear on the story I am trying to tell. 

In the last bunch of years, a tool that has served me well has been "the side document". I always have my master document (the screenplay or teleplay itself) and then a side document where I experiment and take risks. If a scene isn't working, sometimes it can be freeing to write a vomit scene in this separate document to play around with it and figure out why it's not working. It feels far less high-stakes when you're not writing in your master document. Sometimes none of the work in the side document gets imported into the master doc, but often I find there will be tidbits or passages that come out of that more experimental rewriting process that really improve and inform the full screenplay. Sometimes if a relationship in a story isn't singing, I will cut and paste just the scenes between those two characters into the side document. Seeing them all side-by-side, it can be easier to see repetition or lack of clarity or stagnant stakes or whatever it might be, and diagnose what needs to change/develop. I'll often challenge myself — even if I am three or four drafts into rewriting something — to pitch it back to myself (or a trusted friend/colleague) in a tidy five-sentence paragraph. If I can't, maybe that's a sign I'm still digging for clarity and true narrative intentions.  

Michele is a U.S.-based screenwriter. She is also the vice-president of the Writers Guild of America West.

JO CALLAGHAN (author, IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE)

IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE was my crime debut, but, actually, it was my sixth book — the other five failed to get a U.K. publishing deal — so I've had a lot of practice in rewriting!

I am a plotter by nature, in that I never start writing until I know the major plot points, characters and essentially the story that I am trying to tell, as that is what excites me. But over the fourteen years I have been writing, I think I have become better at recognizing the key themes or “true story” that lie beneath the surface plot. I used to do this in a sequential way, so that the first draft was very two-dimensional, and then each subsequent draft was a further excavation as I tried to reach the bones beneath. For example, when I wrote the first draft of IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, having just lost my husband, I thought it was primarily about loss, and how loved ones can disappear “in the blink of an eye”. But as I researched more about AI (the novel involves an AI detective) and also the human mind — I read BLINK by Malcolm Gladwell — and realized that my story was also about the respective merits of “gut instinct” versus logic and algorithms, and ultimately, about what it means to be human.

I am currently writing book three in the series, and I think I'm getting better at discovering the real themes or story at the heart of each novel very early on. Working with the production company that optioned the series has definitely helped in this respect, as when they asked for a summary of book two, they encouraged me to set out the themes rather than the plot-based synopsis that publishing usually requires. I found this incredibly helpful, and now I do this before I start drafting, as well as mapping out what each character wants against what they actually need, to ensure that the plot heightens any conflict. I am very ideas-driven, so in order to motivate myself to write at nights and weekends once my paid work is done, I have to know what story I am trying to tell - and to feel that it really matters. 

Jo is a U.K.-based author. Her second novel, LEAVE NO TRACE, will be released on March 28th.

RAY UTARNACHITT (screenwriter/co-executive producer, DC’S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW)

When I start a new story, I have in mind at least the seed of a theme that I’m passionate about, even if it’s not crystal clear at the start. And after that painful and messy first draft is written, I finally have something to really dig into and see if the story is working on any level. It’s the first time the ideas in my head are battle-tested.

Rewriting is where I can put my logic hat on or slap on my emotional journey goggles to see what the story is doing or, more likely, not doing. This is usually when I realize my story is not about what I thought it was about. I try not to panic when my story morphs into something unexpected. Sometimes the story is even better than I had imagined. But usually, it’s not necessarily better or worse, just...different. 

Every story I’ve written, I’ve approached differently during the rewriting phase. I’ve never been able to predict how things will go. But I do try to find the story’s true identity by letting it breathe and see where it wants to go. Even though stories are just words on a page, it doesn’t mean they aren’t essentially living organisms that take on a life of their own no matter how hard you want to dictate their path. 

Ray is a U.S.-based screenwriter.

CAVAN SCOTT (STAR WARS: THE HIGH REPUBLIC architect)

Rewriting starts in the writing. Kind of. I'm a butt-in-the-seat-and-get-through-the-zero-draft-without-stopping kind of guy, so won't go back and edit at all until I reach the end. But, even though I outline, ideas do come to me mid-flow and/or characters surprise me along the way. That's why I always write with a notebook beside me. As new ideas come, or changes evolve, I jot down what I'm going to have to go back and change in the next run-through. The same goes with theme and identity. While I often start with a theme in mind, that too can change in small or sometimes apocalyptic ways. Again, I do the same. I jot down the ideas as they come and what that will mean for what I've written so far, so I can go back and adjust. 

Of course, there's another level to rewriting: getting notes! I try not to react straight away and instead attempt to take a step back and think: what has caused that note? It could be that the reader has misunderstood something, but if that's the case there's usually a reason for that - I've broken something deeper in the narrative or just haven't explained/portrayed things properly. It's especially true when you're faced with notes that offer a “solution” to a problem. Nine times out of ten, the solution won't work, and the problem isn't what they think it is, but again, if you can reverse engineer their thinking, you can uncover elements, issues and themes you haven't even considered before. 

I sometimes have arguments with myself in the notes. I start a response, which luckily the reviewer/editor will never see, that says something like: “No, no, no, no, that will never work, because A, B and C...unless we do this, that or the other” and, before I know it, I've come up with a solution I never knew existed that was much better than what I wrote originally. In those cases, I delete my reply, change to my “this, that or the other” and look far cleverer than I actually am!

Cavan is a U.K.-based author, comic book writer, and screenwriter. You can subscribe to his arts newletter, The Cavletter, here.

CORINNE KINGSBURY (creator/showrunner, “IN THE DARK”)

Rewriting is my favorite part of the writing process. There is nothing I loathe more than a blank page staring back at me. Most of my writer pals do a vomit draft, but I've never been able to do this. I start to really hate myself and what I'm writing in equal measure. So I actually do tons of rewriting as I go. Probably too much.

After I finish my work for the day, I take the script thus far, make it into a PDF, and email it to myself. Then I give it a little space. I make dinner, feed the kids, put them to bed, then sit on the couch and read through it. I figure out what's working and what isn't and why. Then, I have the rest of the night to think about how I'm going to approach it the next day. The first thing I do the following morning is tackle the notes from the night before. It can get laborious because some days I don't even add any pages. I just go back and fix what I've already written. It sort of feels like I'm willingly taking the stairs instead of the escalator.

This process isn't for everyone. It's incredibly advantageous to have a first draft that you can work off of, but I simply can't do it. 

Corinne is a U.S.-based screenwriter.