Screenwriting Mantra: “Writing is rewriting”
Perhaps no more true than in relation to screenwriting.
Perhaps no more true than in relation to screenwriting.
Why did the ancient Greeks and Romans use wax tablets for writing? Was it for ease of transport? Endless supply of bee’s wax? Ability to use that cool little stylus-thingee?
No, primarily because of this [per Wikipedia]:
The entire tablet could be erased for reuse by warming it to about 50 °C and smoothing the softened wax surface.
And why was reusing the wax so important?
BECAUSE WRITING IS REWRITING!
Some writing quotes to drive home this point:
“There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting.”
— Harry Shaw
“Books are not written — they’re rewritten.”
— Michael Crichton
“Good writing is essentially rewriting.”
— Roald Dahl
“I have never thought of myself as a good writer. . . . But I’m one of the world’s great rewriters.”
— James Michener
“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
— Vladimir Nabokov
“I can’t understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.”
— Leo Tolstoy
Now this does not mean there is a certain way to write-and-rewrite. You may choose to finish a draft [see: Get the damn thing done!], then rewrite. Or you may rewrite as you go. Per this approach, a quote from writer Diana Gabladon:
I get asked, ‘How many drafts do you go through?’ all the time. The answer is either ‘one’ or ‘infinity,’ but I don’t know how to tell the difference. I don’t write, leave, come back later and revise. I work slow and fiddle constantly, so the revision is pretty much done as part of the original writing. By the time I’m done with a scene, I’m done with it.
But the key is to get it down. Look at it with an objective eye. And write it better.
A final quote to serve as an exclamation point to this mantra:
“The pleasure is the rewriting: The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written. This is a koan-like statement, and I don’t mean to sound needlessly obscure or mysterious, but it’s simply true. The completion of any work automatically necessitates its revisioning.”
— Joyce Carol Oates
Writing is rewriting.
For more articles in the Screenwriting Mantra series, go here.