The Many Times You'll Tell Your Story

I prefer encouraging people to learn their own lessons and filter any of the junk I have to say through their own perspectives, but if there’s one false belief writers (particularly new ones) often tell themselves that must be banished at all costs, it would be regarding any and all misconceptions that your book will only need to be written the one time. Writing well, so frequently more than anything, means rewriting and revising to the fullest extent. There simply is no good writing that hasn’t been poured over, edited in ways both big and small, or in other words, rewritten in some fashion several times over. If you want to write a novel that will get read, don’t tell yourself you’re just trying to write a novel, tell yourself instead that you’re practicing to become the world’s leading expert in executing your story. I do in many ways think of all these countless revisions as something of retellings in their own right. Each draft and every summary is another attempt to nail it, another leg on the journey of enlightenment, if you will. This is what I mean by the many ways you’ll tell your story - but before we unpack further, let me get my monthly writing updates out of the way.

If you’re a reader of this blog (who am I kiddin’), you’ll probably notice this entry is slightly early in the month compared to the previous few. This is because I’m about to dedicate the next as many days as I can to wrapping up the draft of my current work in progress. I was using a slower, edit-as-ya-mosey-along style to get through act one, but I think I’m ready to move into a swifter method to finish the pass sooner so that I can use the bright summer months to return to yet another project I left off… It’s a suitable project to return to, as if all goes according to plan, quarantine will be concluding with me working on the same project that it began with. But we’ll see, as no matter how well you plan your story, one must always remain ready to append.

Again, when I say “the many times you’ll tell your story”, I mean specifically all the times you’ll be drafting, re-drafting, editing, summarizing, or conceptually tweaking in ways both big and small. Each retelling of your story hones it, brings it closer to its essential quality - and not to get too trippy, but I think the more you abstract the story from its medium and recompile it, the more the story evolves towards its truest, best form. Okay, if you’re not rolling your eyes at the pretense, you’re at least thinking to yourself that perhaps not every single round of copyediting and the like is an entirely new retelling. But I would argue that every pass of editing is in itself an entirely new journey, a new read-through, a new understanding, and a new finely honed filter in which to process the merits of the story. Consider how when you re-read a story you’ve read a thousand times over, your current understanding of the world and your own life will inevitably re-color what you take away from that same old story. The same principle applies. Every pass is a journey, and every journey is of course a story all its own.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the drafting process in particular. I’m currently on my fifth attempt at the thing called a novel, and I still don’t know if I have a single process down tight. If anything, my method seems to change to suit my needs, either due to my timeline for the project or some other factor. What remains the same is how many times over the body of work must be reproached before even a worthwhile first draft exists. Sure, I’m told experience speeds up the process, but it remains true that no good story is only told a single time. Even when you outline (or perhaps in some cases, especially because you outline), you can’t escape this truth - in fact, the outline itself is a telling all it’s own, so even by writing an outline before hand, you’ve already told the story once before even typing the first sentence of the draft. I’ve heard it said before that the magic number for passes tends to average at around four in total, which is more or less what I’ve found to be true in my experience. Not counting outlines and synopsi (or any other format of your story outside the manuscript itself), four complete passes seems to be about the average requirement for a book to take it’s eventual shape - but of course your experience will vary, and all of this is before even considering the near-infinite possible passes you might be inclined to make upon receiving reader and editor feedback.

Perhaps what most compelled me to reflect upon this particular topic is how many times I’ve had to practice telling my own story for query letters and the like. When querying, in addition to the complete manuscript, one should have prepared a hook and a synopsis - both of which are entirely different formats with entirely different word counts, expectations, and purposes. They aren’t so different from the manuscript, as every text is written with a purpose, simply consider the hook and the novel two different uses of the same story intended for different ends. The more I ruminate on this topic and dwell too heavily on the whole ouroboros-ness of it all, the more I find refuge in that old, trite line about art never being finished but abandoned (though I don’t think this line holds up when one considers how many times an author can iterate entirely new works upon the same general concept, but that’s a topic for another time). Still, we haven’t even broached literal re-tellings, such as in adaptations and the like - my point being is that your one, single book will be the product of countless previous forms, and has the potential to spark endless more.

Of course, this begins to beg the question, what elements must be changed for the same old story to be considered an entirely new one, as opposed to an older one retold? It’s the old axe with a replacement handle and blade question - but again, clearly a topic for another entry. My point with this entry is that I think at some point as writers we all suffer under the delusion that if we just can write at our highest level, the amount of times we’ll have to rewrite will be reduced in the long run. I think it’s best to chase out this mentality with a stick, replace it with the humble notion that every time you approach the story, whether as an editing pass or in any way more or less substantial, that you’ll consider it as another opportunity to tell the tale yet again and bring it another telling closer to perfection. In my much younger days, I myself even dreaded the idea of having to spend so much effort on rewriting a single story - but no amount of outlining or total lifetime word count has yet to change this fact… At least not fully, I’d be lying in saying that it doesn’t get quicker and easier in many ways - I’m even told that the amount of edits it takes tends to decline as one progresses, but I’ll believe that when I’ve gotten there myself. For now, I thank you for reading and joining me along the journey, and until next time, may every step of your own be fruitful and fulfilling.