The Bad Version Part Two: Steps For Rewriting By Soliciting Notes/ Writers Groups

Steps For Rewriting: Soliciting Notes/ Writers Groups

So - you got that first draft out of your system. I don’t care how much outlining you did, how you sat for hours choosing the right adverb, or that you think it’s the next great American piece of writing.

Read Part One here.

Hard truth: there are problems with your first draft. Some might be structural, or the overall length, or certain characters need serious fleshing out. Maybe the concept needs to be rebuilt from the ground up (the horror!)  What are the best steps forward? How can you organize your thoughts? How can you get reliable feedback?

The work doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Whether it's a book or a short story or or a screenplay, what you’ve written is meant to be read! So find some readers. No, I don’t mean ask your mom to give you feedback. People close to us are more likely to say “It’s perfect, you did a great job, I’m so proud of you!” This is not the critical feedback we need to hear in order to improve our writing.

We need trusted peers who can help illuminate some of the elements that simply aren’t working. How do you know they aren’t working? More feedback from more trusted sources!  

What About Your Bad Version Can Be Improved?

One of the best uses of feedback I’ve ever seen was during a test screening for the remake of Stephen King’s Carrie movie. After the film screened, the director, Kimberly Pierce, asked the small audience what they thought could be improved. When one person would give her criticism, she paused and polled the audience. “How many people agree with this person?” she asked and some people would raise their hands, or vocalize that they agreed or not.

She was getting real time feedback about issues with the cut of the film (something I’d consider to be one draft of the film story). I could tell she was mentally taking notes about what criticism had a certain weight to it. 

Having multiple people read your work, whether independently, or in a workshop setting, allows you to essentially do what Kimberly Pierce did in the room. Only you know the story you want to tell, but hearing consistent problem areas from different folks allows you to focus on those areas first. 

Finding Writer's Workshops/Groups

With workshops in particular, it also helps to preface any notes you might be about to get with a statement of intent. What is it you’re trying to accomplish with this project? What are you trying to say? “I want this to be an action packed nonstop thrill ride that doesn’t let go until the last page,” will help those giving you notes stay focused - because it goes both ways.

Often note givers are guilty of telling the writer about how they would write your project themselves, so stating your intent before will allow you to step back and ask for those boundaries to be respected if people begin leading you down a rabbit hole of content they feel is missing or should be changed from your piece. The point is that it’s your job to, like Kimberly Pierce did in that screening, get what you need out of notes.

It’s not an easy task and can often be emotional for both parties. Writers live and breathe stories and, much like workers in any other industry, we have opinions… 

But how does one find a writer’s workshop or a writer’s group? Hint: go where the writers are! If you’re a working writer this can be a lot easier - I found a wonderful writer’s group through my former management company in Los Angeles. This group was particularly tight knit due to our all having the same representation. For one of us to succeed, the rest of the group or company would also benefit.

In hindsight, this might have been idealistic, but when we were just getting the group started, it tied us all together and forced us to ask what was best for our individual stories. This group was lead by a great writer, Zack Kaplan, who had a particular knack for running the group like a tight ship. Since we all read the material and compiled notes before meeting, Zack was essential in putting limits on submissions, keeping time during discussion, as well as keeping track of who was on deck for submissions.

This group structure was much more about giving and receiving notes on a monthly basis and it was priceless. We came to read the bad versions of our work and it forced us to check our egos at the door. It also allowed us to bring the bad version of our scripts to a safe space, though I will admit that we often struggled to maintain this through the years. 

Over time I met many other writers and created my own group, one which I always say is more of a support group than anything else. We get together and read work aloud, limiting prose to 5 pages double spaced, so nobody’s hogging all the time. And there’s feedback, but it often veers toward an emotional reaction to what we just heard, rather than a deconstruction of the writer’s usage of the Oxford comma.

Even during COVID lockdowns, we got together over Zoom and shared our work - it felt great.  

A real world example I cite in my classes is the famous Pixar “Brain Trust” - a group of creative leaders at the animation studio who oversee and shepherd their brilliant films through development. To me, this is the ultimate writer’s group (and one I actually model my classes at Fordham on).

From Pixar Co-Founder Ed Catmull: “The Braintrust is benevolent. It wants to help. And it has no selfish agenda.” To me, this is the essence of feedback on any creative endeavor - we should all approach our own work and the work of others with a certain sense of kindness.

Making art is difficult and can be emotionally draining. It’s hard to go from “bad” to “good” because we get attached to our work, even if it’s not as smooth and well thought out as we hope or believe. 

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Stay tuned for Part Three, coming soon! 

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