THE STORY SPOT

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Writers can often be heard grumbling about the drudgery of rewriting. Those of us who make a living from “the rewrite” are no exception. But I’m here to tell you, there are great joys to be found within those looming pages. Really.

Rewriting is the work you do on a manuscript or screenplay (or anything else) once that first tremulous blush of committing fresh words to the world has passed. It can be a general pass to see what crops up or a focused pass solely on, say, diction. It may be a combination of both. Everyone’s process is different.

The one constant is that rewriting is what makes good work, brilliant (okay, at least much, much better). Five tips to make your rewrite shine, after the jump.
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Those of you who read THE STORY SPOT regularly will know that we’re fans of screenwriter John August’s highly entertaining and informative blog. Recently, he posted a little video about tightening up the openings of your scenes. Just because it’s screenwriting-focused, doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant to you novelists and memoirists out there.

In a nutshell, the illustrious Mr. August illustrates how to get to the core action of the scene right away while adding a bit of visual color along the way. Good stuff for writers at all levels.

“Writing Better Scene Openings” at johnaugust.com (feel free to click through to his site to read his full post.)

In all these years, believe it or not, I’d somehow managed to avoid writing a good old-fashioned, dragged-through-the-mud, elbow-to-the-eye battle scene. Until now.

Like you, I have certainly read my share. From hissing cat-fights to laser-gun fueled space war, I’ve read scenes that were so animated and spot-on that I had not a word to say. Or, in other cases, I had given notes that asked the writer to please, for goodness sake, use the generic situation (the fight) to convey story information (character growth, plot advancement, etc.). But somehow none of my rewrites or personal projects required more than brief physical confrontation.

Today is a different day.
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Identifying your hero’s tragic flaw is likely to be the most powerful first step you can take when creating or rewriting a story. Why? Let The Unknown Screenwriter (UNK, to y’all) fill you in:

A Protagonist’s tragic flaw is actually more like his or her ego defense mechanism. In the beginning of the story and through approximately the third quarter of a story, the Protagonist continually relies on this tragic flaw to get as far as he or she has gotten. Up to this point however, whether they are aware of the flaw or not, they think they need it to get through the day. Consciously or unconsciously…

Read the rest at The Unknown Screenwriter…

Find the fatal flaw early and you’re likely to have an easier time creating the world and events of your story as everything must, in some real way, thread back to your character’s turn away from her starting point. It’s another useful tidbit from UNK for those of you who already know everything there is to know about story as well as for those of you who don’t (um, that would be me).

Related posts here:
Hamartia and the Self by Meldenius
Is Your Hero Sympathetic, and What the Heck Does That Mean?
Focus on the Protagonist

As you probably already know, one gesture from a character can communicate more in an instant that anything they might say in a paragraph of diagloue.

Here is a nice little case-in-point. Behold the music video for “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes. Notice the many, many ways these people are conveying their love without uttering a single word (a nose on a shoulder, stroking a forehead).

G’head. Mute it, even. I dare you.

Bright Eyes’ “First Day Of My Life” from their 2005 album “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” via YouTube and Twitter friend Danmacgregor.