The Power of a Re-Write

You toil over the words, analyze them, revise them, plot, ponder, say them aloud, and even dream about them. Admiring the best that your creative genius has to offer, you sit back and stare at the screen. Perfect.

With pride, you offer your page for expected approval from a trusted reviewer. Maybe it’s a relative, perhaps a critique partner; it could even be an unknown reader from across the globe. You expect them to tell you, “It’s a masterpiece.”

It isn’t. There are flaws, unanswered questions, poor grammar, errors in continuity, misused words, and weak flow.

Your face warms and the air thins around you. What happened? Did they read the same words you had written? They must be mistaken. Obviously, they have different tastes and don’t understand genius. Relax. Absorb some oxygen. Sit down. They are right.While tastes differ and personal opinions vary at levels that stretch the universe, there’s one constant in our arena:

Poor writing is poor writing.

I’d like to tell you that I’m an expert, with years of publishing behind me, and numerous books quantifying my experiences. Truthfully, I am a novice; I haven’t published an utterance and I’ve never spoken to a published author. I know the strength of words, and can tell you with certainty:

There’s power in a re-write.

Step away from what you’ve written and UNDERSTAND what your readers are telling you—take notes if you must. Then dig inside yourself for the inspiration to apply that to your revision. Re-write and then do it again. Print the pages or view them in another format. Look for everything you can to gain a fresh perspective. Sometimes it even helps to have someone else read the words to you. Oh, the horror; you’ll discover the flaws that by the nature of your abilities should not have been. Re-write.

Eventually, YOUR WORDS will form the POWERFUL MASTERPIECE you imagined.