How to survive the rewrite suck
The most important part is also the most challenging (IMO)
I’ve been rewriting a film.
So naturally, I woke up this morning ruminating. Thoughts of “But what does this guy even want???” in a never ending loop as I made my coffee and walked the dog.
“What does this guy even want?”
This is after I’ve pitched the movie, outlined the movie, re-written the outline for the movie, and written the movie, mind you. And after I wrote this piece trying to boost my own spirits heading into the rewrite!
At the same time, I’ve been helping with the edit on the documentary Father Figures I’m producing. As we edit the film, we’re having this same conversations. “How do we show what our protagonist wants? And how do we make that clear to the audience? And how does every moment in the film follow logically from that goal?” It’s different in documentary, you’re writing and rewriting the film in the edit rather than in Final Draft, but… same stuff! Same problems!
What does this guy want?
It’s a SIMPLE QUESTION. And one that you’re supposed to answer from the very beginning of the process. And yet! It seems to be one that I have asked over and over and over again throughout just about every draft of every project I’ve ever worked on.
As you may be able to tell, I am in currently in “The Rewrite Suck.”
What do I mean by “rewrite suck?” It’s the part of the process where you look at the thing you’ve been working on for weeks, months, years, and say… “I can’t figure this out. This sucks. I suck.” And I would just like to say, as a PAID, PROFESSIONAL screenwriter, this has happened on every project I’ve ever worked on.
And I’m pretty confident it has happened for just about everyone else I know too.
[Minus, of course, the psychopaths, they are doing just fine, thank you very much]
So how do we set ourselves up for success knowing that we will, almost inevitably, find ourselves swimming straight into The Rewrite Suck? I have some thoughts.
Remember, you aren’t going to “break” it.
The first thing that stymies a rewrite, and it’s something I see most often with earlier career writers is a fear of breaking the thing. I get it. You have toiled countless hours to get here, and it’s working… pretty well. Not perfectly, but… you got it this far. The machine runs. It’s clunky at times, but it runs. And so, as writers head into rewrites, it’s common to worry about doing too much and pulling the thing apart.
But remember, if you wanted to run diagnostics on a car’s engine, you would have to pull the engine out of the car to look at all the little pumps and pistons and what have you (I don’t know, I’m not a car guy). Is this technically breaking the car? Momentarily, sure. But, it’s what you have to do to get the thing to peak performance. Every single piece of the thing has to be reexamined and re-tooled.
You will not break it.
You still have the old draft. [Save a new copy of the file every day!] You will soon have a new draft. But you do have to pull the thing apart to get into the guts of the matter. Don’t nibble around the edges. Don’t polish scenes up before you’ve overhauled the structure.
The old draft is the floor, not the ceiling. Trust me. As someone who’s currently re-breaking all of Act Two, trust me.
Know what draft you’re on
Remember how ONE SECOND ago I said “don’t nibble around the edges?” Don’t get confused about where you are in the process. The first draft is for getting something down. The second draft is for doing a massive, structural overhaul that hopefully makes everything that was interesting about the first draft actually cohere to a sound story structure. It’s about honing in on theme, it’s about removing anything non-essential, and it’s about being a little bit aggressive and mercenary in order to get there.
Do not be afraid to throw things away. The first rewrite isn’t the time to be “polishing” anything. There’s a reason that these two types of work are technically considered different things by the WGA. A rewrite is about tearing down the walls in the house. It’s a reno. The polish is about re-decorating.
Get notes (but not too many)
In my experience, getting notes is invaluable, and also, overwhelming! I’ve written about best practices before (how to give notes, and how to take notes). But something that I think is extremely important to keep in mind when you’re about to tackle rewriting something is trying not to cloud your own judgement with too much feedback.
A film is not crowd-sourced from every smart person you know. A film should ultimately be one coherent vision. And so, rather than ask ten people for feedback, I’d recommend 2-3 people. Any time I’ve gotten feedback from more than three people, I start to lose the plot. It’s just too much to hold onto. You don’t want to be considering eight different points of view on what the character’s want is. You just want to get to the bottom of what YOU think it is.
Let the problems solve themselves
If you can give yourself some space and time from the draft, and then from the notes, you should. The human brain solves problems subconsciously (many believe that’s part of why we dream!) and so allowing your brain to kind of do its thing without forcing it, may in fact solve a lot of the things that today you are banging your head against the wall over.
When you hit the rewrite suck — walk away, if even just for a day.
Start big picture, like very big picture
It’s really good to write out for yourself what this movie is about. Both why you want to make it, and what you think it’s trying to say. If you have that, you have a North Star you can always refer back to in order to gut check feedback. Does this align with what the movie is trying to do? If not, toss it out. From there, it’s also important to try to hone in on more specifics — is the protagonist’s want/need clear? Is the story’s structure supporting that journey? Are the act breaks where they need to be, and are they changing the character appropriately? BIG PICTURE STUFF. Now is the time to do it, before you get to draft seven! Trust me!
Trust that you will have new, better ideas
Ideas are not finite. You will come up with new things that will solve old things that never worked. You will come up with new things that are just better than what’s in there currently. It will happen. Trust the process. Trust that you’re just as smart (and probably smarter) today than you were when you were first writing.
Don’t be afraid to cut cut cut
There’s a lot of interesting stuff that you can find while writing. But the rewrite process is all about CLARITY OF VISION. If something doesn’t support the film as you imagine it, it can go. Don’t worry. Nobody will miss it. Not even you!
Remember: The Rewrite Suck is normal.
Rewriting is hard. I think it’s important that it be hard. That means you’re probably doing it right. An easy rewrite is usually a polish in disguise. You’re nibbling around the edges, fixing up dialogue and making slug lines more interesting, when you should be getting under the hood and pulling the entire machine apart. There should be some emotional friction as you do this. And some frustration. And some rumination.
You can and will hit The Rewrite Suck.
Wondering whether you’re ever going to figure it out, whether it was a good idea in the first place, whether you even know how to tell a story, is all normal stuff.
And you do know. I believe in you.
And now, I have to go figure out how the heck to tell this story. Again.
What about you out there, dear readers and writers? How do you handle Rewrite Suck? Any practical tips for the rest of us? Self-care tips? Share em below!
Do you do another beat sheet/ outline for the second draft or just go straight in and start making big changes?
"And so, rather than ask ten people for feedback, I’d recommend 2-3 people." So, what is your stance on writing groups, just out of curiosity? Some groups are quite small, 2-3, but most groups I've been in are bigger, maybe 4-6 or even larger in some cases. Thoughts?