Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Ripping out Stitches and Rewriting Chapters

I've got two projects going right now. One is my current WIP that I'm polishing up, the other is a quilt I am in the process of hand quilting.

Last week I started on one of the corners of the quilt. Now, I know you have to quilt from the center out, so that you don't end up with wrinkles and puckering, and I am doing that. This section of the quilt was the next thing out from the center to work on and I didn't think it mattered where in the triangle I started, so I started from one end.

After a couple of hours of quilting I realized I had a bit of puckering going on. I looked at what I'd already quilted and decided I didn't want to rip it out, so I would just make a few adjustments and all would be fine.

I continued in that vein as I quilted on and off for the rest of the week. On Saturday I got to the other side of the triangle and realized that the amount of puckering had become so great that I couldn't do anything other than rip it all out and try again. So that's what I did.

It's difficult to see hard work ripped out but sometimes it's necessary to make a project work out.

Which brings me to my WIP.

I joke that I have had so many iterations of the first chapter for this story that I could make a book just on first chapters. And just when I thought I had it right, feedback from trusted sources told me there was still something amiss.

So I opened up a new document and started chapter one again.

Because, as hard as it is to see hard work deleted, sometimes that is what is necessary to make a story work.

8 comments:

  1. Anyone who keeps thier original Chapter 1 intact is not being honest with themselves. I am close to finishing a first draft and I KNOW I will be rewriting Chapter 1 (and a LOT more)!

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  2. Owww... it hurts! But afterwards, everything is SO much better. Good job!

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  3. When I was writing research papers in college & grad school, I would write a first paragraph, knowing I'd scrap the whole thing after the paper got written. I teach my kids to do the same. It's just part of the process. Hope your WIP goes well!

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  4. That's what Joyce Sweeney told me to do too. She told me to start with a clean sheet. And yes, it was hard but you know what? It did work. Sometimes it takes a leap of faith to just delete and start again.

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  5. Rewrites are an essential part of writing, it's true. Ripping out stitches in a quilt - not quite as essential. I'll probably have to work through that chapter another time - hopefully I won't have to undo any more quilting.

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  6. I don't know, Christine. I think ripping out stitches in a quilt are just as essential as deleting pages and pages of writing. And for the same reason!

    I'm on a third rewrite of a WIP. This morning I unwrote 3000 words. Needed to be done.

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  7. Yes, it hurts to let our beautiful words go. After who knows how many rewrites, the right words finally are there. I've never tried quilting, but have a couple my mother made.

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  8. For me it is not about replacing beautiful words with new beautiful words. It's about tightening the plot. Hacking out excess. Improving the story flow. First drafts usually needs tons O work.

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