STOS # 1 (Rewrite)

A while ago, I wrote about my initial failure to begin the revision of STOS # 1. I’m here to report that the rewriting had finally begun, with difficulties.

After finishing the first draft before Easter, I’ve already known that one of the characters was of no importance to the story. Michelle (the character’s name) will have to go. For some reasons, I thought it was going to be just a cut & paste job. Dream on!

After re-reading the story, the “taking out” mean a rewrite of the opening of the story. And by removing Michelle, I have to re-develop her father’s character. He’s now playing a major role in helping the protagonist to get what she wants. To complicate the matter, I’ll also have to restructure the sequence of events through out the story.

Apart from the above, another major task for this revision is to flesh out the motivation of the protagonist and to give the driving force behind her action depth and details. And I haven’t included works like tidying up dialogue, quality of the prose etc to the list.

While writing the first draft, I rely heavily on intuition to churn out the 200+ words per day. The writing becomes a thrill ride to me and there is a great sense of achievement after the daily writing.

With revision, it is a totally different scenario. I could not just slide into my chair and start punching away words on the laptop. A lot of the time is spent on thinking plus scribbling down notes and questions for myself. Actual rewriting is done in snail paces, hence I’m unable to work on the rewrite every day. This has completely thrown me off from the writing routine that I just started to get used to. And gosh, this is messing me up, big time!

I hope that give it some time, I’ll get used to the re-imagining of story and characters for rewriting. Wish me luck, fellow creatives!

P.S. As if I don’t have enough of mess, I started STOS # 4 (draft) yesterday!

* STOS is a series of stories which based (loosely) on the same theme.