Great Writing Comes From Rewriting

Get from the idea to the end of the last page with success

Have you ever written something brilliant but didn’t finish it?

Why didn’t you finish it?

Revise it.

Good stories have a clear expression from beginning to end. Voice, tone, dialogue, and pacing express the author’s vision in captivating language; it doesn’t matter what the genre is; the mechanics of good work stay consistent across the types of books published. It comes down to having an idea and the talent, discipline, and time to write it.

Fiction has an arc that takes the reader from the beginning to the middle, into the climax, and to the conclusion. Great fiction can be fast-paced or slow; the voice counts, not the story’s pace

Memoir can have a flat tone and no major event that causes drama in the author’s life

Business books have a point or lesson that’s expressed in every chapter; sometimes one chapter builds the foundation for the next, and usually the entire book is going to express a weighty precept, expressing a business philosophy or some sort of advantageous way of doing things

Every page has a tone.

The tone may shift from serious to humorous depending on the page or chapter, but the overall tone stays consistent. Just as a movie can be labeled drama and still include comedic elements, the overall experience centers on the plight of the character or characters, which sets the film’s serious tone. Material doesn’t have to dictate the tone; a writer’s vision can set it regardless of the content.

There are many ways to approach revision.

Writers are not scientists, but academia has tried to make creative writing a science.

Captivating writing in any genre comes from talent, not strategy, knowledge, or experience. But talent benefits from these things.

The many details that come into play in writing can be confusing; if misunderstood, they can waste time and make a writing session ill-spent.

To keep our discussion simple, let’s frame our considerations around a 20-page work of fiction. Within this twenty-page story, there is a beginning, middle, and an end. The story will have a point of view: first person (I/we), second person (you/your/you’re), or third person (He/She/They/It).

Let’s say you have two pages of a scene for a buddy-detective story you want to turn into 5,000 words (twenty pages) to submit to lit journals.

You’ve expressed everything you had from that first session that gave you two pages, but now you have only a few scene ideas and no idea how to connect them to your two pages into a competitive-length story. But you want to get it near that maximum submission length for competition, and you’re not sure what to do after you have those five pages down.

You push yourself and get another two pages, but the writing isn’t inspired like the first two. How will you finish the story? Do you have a style of approach to your work?

Several possible tracks can get you to the end of a good story.

All of them have gotten me and others through writing blocks.

All are good things to try, but one may work for you and another may not. The best thing to do is to try the method you feel instinctually drawn to first. But try all of them. Do the things that you think you’re not good at. That’s how you get experience; that’s how you can talk against one way in favor of another, but the main thing is to write.

When we get stuck and can’t carry our idea further, we’re tempted to give up. Put it in a drawer, save it for later.

Or you can work on it and get it done.

Here are three methods you can try to get to your finished manuscript.

1. Write the draft

Get all of your story onto the page until you have a complete first draft.

Don’t worry about the bad writing. There will be plenty of it. You’ll make it great later.

No matter how good your idea is if you write the draft out without stopping to examine it, your pages will be filled with great ideas and terrible writing.

Some of it will be excellent in between stretches of good ideas weakly expressed.

Writing a book is a job.

Choose blocks of time to write throughout the week and honor them. Work for a stretch of hours, and you’re done for the day. Good practice is keeping a consistent routine, but it’s not a 9-to-5. Write when it works for you, choose the days and times you will write, and stick to your schedule. Switch up the a.m. and p.m. sessions throughout the week whenever it works better that way for you.

Don’t feel guilty about missing a session; make it up if you can. If four hours is too much of your day to designate to prose work, try two hours. But when you’re in the chair, stay in the work.

A writing session isn’t 100% writing. Sometimes it’s not even 50%. Planning is a part of the work, but don’t let yourself ponder for the whole session. Planning comes first, and even that’s done with writing. Figuring out plot traps to connect one part of the story with another needs strategy, but even that is done with writing. Whether it’s flowing fluidly from you or you’re working through a page in an hour, if you’re not working at the text for 95% of the time, you’re thinking too much.

Here’s why.

Part of writing is writing poorly.

Get the story out.

Let’s say you have two pages (500 to 700 words) of brilliant copy and you’ve already decided how your story ends. To get close to that 20-page mark (5,000 words), you need to write the story. Write what you’ve planned, improvise what you don’t know, connect the two pages you have to the further writing you’ve done.

Get your ideas onto the page.

Don’t hold yourself to writing great copy.

Try to write charismatic prose with your ideas expressed clearly, but if you have to write ugly sentences to carry your idea, let them come out so your idea comes out.

Once you have the idea on the page, refine the language. This might mean deleting entire sentences and rewriting new ones; it might mean changing words here and there to make awkward phrasing smooth. Once you tell the story in bad language, it’s easier to get the whole thing revised into good language.

2. Plan it out

Get all of your ideas in order on the page before you begin writing copy.

Let’s say you’ve tried the first method but you can’t bring yourself to write thousands of awkward sentences until you get to the end.

If your badly constructed sentences extending from those first two brilliant pages are distracting your production,

outline your story.

Give titles to the beginning, middle, and end of your story.

Your outline can be as many sections as you can logically break it into its main ideas. Detail each section with the points that support it.

The important part is that you measure your sections so each of your outline’s major subsections is of relatively equal value.

Let’s say your story takes place over two days of the protagonist’s life. Part of it’s told in flashback, part is told from his partner’s point of view, a third is dialogue-heavy, and three-fourths of it is narrative.

Try breaking up your story into sections that showcase substantial chunks of the action.

Part One is the first flashback

Part Two is mostly description with a little dialogue

Part Three is heavy on dialogue and present tense

Part Four is lighter on dialogue with a little flashback

The story finishes in the present moment

An outline is as detailed as you want it to be.

Sometimes basic outlines work best because you’re getting the arc onto the page with a few cues along the way; no story needs a lot of detail. A novel's outline should be intricate, but keep the action lines simple, because it can get confusing if you try to account for too much detail. Detailed outlines can get in the way of clarity on the page and the freedom to express an idea however you feel is best at the time of writing.

For any dialogue you want to use, I would advise keeping it in a notebook separate from the outline.

Dialogue matters greatly, but if you have a notebook that identifies, chapter by chapter and scene by scene, where you want dialogue to appear, it’s easier to refer to what your characters will say when you’re looking at a separate source.

Here is a four-part structural outline for a 20-page buddy-detective story:

Part 1: The Inciting Clash (Pages 1–5)

Setup: Introduce your mismatched partners (e.g., the hyper-by-the-book veteran and the chaotic rookie) at a gritty crime scene

Hook: They find a bizarre clue that immediately contradicts the precinct’s theory, forcing them to go rogue together

Part 2: The False Lead & Friction (Pages 6–10)

The Investigation: The partners chase an obvious suspect across town

Conflict: Their clashing investigative styles cause a major argument in the middle of a stakeout, nearly blowing the case and forcing them to re-evaluate their dynamic

Part 3: The Breakthrough & Turning Point (Pages 11–15)

The Realization: Reviewing the initial crime scene clue in light of their argument, one partner spots the overlooked pattern

Pivot: They rush toward the true culprit’s hideout, shifting the story from defense to active pursuit

Part 4: The Confrontation & Resolution (Pages 16–20)

The Climax: A high-tension confrontation with the real mastermind in a confined, atmospheric location

Aftermath: The dust settles, they establish begrudging mutual respect, and the partners walk away ready for the next case

By outlining your intended peace, you may be able to see the whole idea clearly, and it will encourage the writing that you do to be better the first time out. It won’t save you from revising, but if you’re saying the story the way that you want to say it the first time, that is a skill in itself; it’s the sign of a writer who has more control of their thoughts and harmony of the pen.

3. Revise as you go

Chances are the first method will encompass some revision while you’re generating copy.

The third method is different.

Writing is rewriting, and you can apply that in different ways.

The third method is to write your story and revise it to your desired effect as you go. You write and rewrite until your page says what you want, the way you want, with undeniable excellence. Technically, you would want somebody to read what you’re writing as you write it so that, once you have a revised page, you can see whether it’s excellent in a reader's opinion before you continue. That’s not a good way for a creative person to operate. You have a great idea, and you need time to let it incubate. But if you’re talented, you’re gonna be able to see what’s good and what’s not so good before anybody else reads it. You can do this by reading what you’ve written at the end of a session. Some writers start their next session by reading what they wrote the prior session.

This is how I worked for a long time while developing my style. I could write a 10-page story in forty-five minutes and then spend two years revising it. I’d write a couple pages, then come back through it to try to tell it the way I wanted. This can work well, but you may find that you’re spending two hours just to get a page written.

It can mean that at the end of your session you’ve got a few clean pages of writing. It’s not the fastest way to get the story onto the page, and it’s not the best strategy to try to make the little that you have great before you get the whole thing out. I recommend this approach if you’re driven to do it. Write and revise your words as you go, session by session, then try it. See how much time and effort it takes you to write your story until it becomes a strong, completed draft.

Writing and revising let you add meticulous detail, get nice sentences onto the page, and work through iterations of your drafts to reach a final draft when you’re finished writing your story. It sounds logical, but that’s not what happens. When you finish a draft, revise as you go, and then read it aloud, you’ll see you still need to make other changes. You’ll still revise it. You may have some more mature ideas expressed precisely the way that you want them expressed, but don’t expect to be done with the piece just because you’ve gotten those details out. Writing and revising aren't the same as polishing an advanced draft. You’ll find that some part of what you’ve written wasn’t expressed the way you wanted by the time you’ve finished the draft.

You’ll want to make more changes.

This approach takes more time, and when you’re done, you may be surprised by how much time you spent trying to get it perfect before you saw the big picture.

If you’ve already used this method, try one of the others to build your skill.

Taking any of these approaches effectively should involve doing two things. Each one offers a distinct discipline for approaching print-worthy copy, and all of them lend themselves to revision. Writing is undeniably a creative art, and it’s discipline, talent, time, and then method in order of usefulness in getting a book written. If you’re writing a story or a book and you’re stuck, try a different approach. Outlines are always a good idea for long pieces of writing. Revising is always good. And these methods are inherently integratable.

You could write a few pages effectively. Brainstorm your idea, write an outline, then start the draft. You could generate the draft quickly in focused sessions over six months and finish it in under two years, revising a little or a lot as you go.

At some point the draft will be complete. The story’s been told. But the work is not done. To make it great, you'll probably have to come through that text more than once and work through the language.

Read what you’ve written out loud. It’s time-consuming, and it takes a lot of effort to read through dozens of pages of copy. You may be tempted to use AI to help you revise the language. But if you want excellent language, read your work aloud. Hear what other people would hear at a literary reading. Read your work aloud to understand your intentions, ideas, and execution at a professional level. It will help you become a better writer.