Opening The Ao3 Tab On The Chrome App At 2 Am: Time To Sin

opening the ao3 tab on the chrome app at 2 am: time to Sin

Me: I am a writer, creator of worlds!

Inner me: You sit on a throne of unused notebooks!

5 Ways to Rewrite Your Script by Abigail Taylor-Sansom

By the end of this month, you’ll have (hopefully) written 31 plays in 31 days. You are a playwriting beast. What next? You start editing! 

Here are my five favorite ways to tackle a rewrite. These methods work for all lengths, and my recommendation is to do one at a time in order to focus on specific goals.

I gave them cute names because I could.

1. “The To-Do List” - Rewrite for specific notes.

This is the most straightforward way to rewrite. You attend to each project as its own isolated endeavor: this scene fell flat, that character needs to come in earlier, the ending needs a tweak, etc.

Personally, I tend to address just three to four of my biggest concerns then leave everything alone for a few days. After a break, I reevaluate and address the next three to four, and so on. Lather, rinse, repeat!

2. “The Makeover” - Rewrite for character or character relationships.

It can be very helpful to do a rewrite that focuses on one to two characters or relationships. This is the time to bust out all the character diaries/journals and other techniques you have in your writer toolbox. Write “deleted scenes,” use improvisation, whatever works! Then take what you’ve discovered and apply it to your script to give it that extra layer of depth and detail.

I often use Myers-Briggs types as a frame of reference during this type of rewrite, but you can use any psychological or archetypal structure that speaks to you.

3. “The Bones” - Rewrite for structure.

Play with the sequencing of events and with time. Reorder your scenes, take some out, or add new ones.  You can also look at the emotional ebb and flow of your piece. What are the most heightened moments, and are they where you want them?

4. “The Weed Wacker” - Rewrite for economy and brevity.

Cut, cut, and cut some more. This is the time to “kill your darlings,” as they say.

Or, to put it more constructively, this is the time to make sure that every moment in your play in some way represents the essence of what you want to say to the world and does so in a way that is unique from the other moments that precede it. Boom.

5. “The Glaze” - Rewrite for proofreading and style.

The easiest kind of rewrite.  Use Grammarly or your Aunt Linda if you need to. We’ve all done it.  

I am a big fan of the Speech Control function on Final Draft (there are similar functions for Word/PDF files). I get the joy of hearing a fabulous robot cast read my script (yes!), and I can sometimes hear what I want to change more easily than I can see it.

The next time you are faced with a rewrite, go through some (or all) of these methods and let us know how they worked for you.

Happy rewriting!

-Abigail

A plotline I wrote early in the story: so have you forgotten about me or what?

Me: 

i am a:

⚪️ man

⚪️ woman

🔘 dumbass

looking for a:

⚪️ man

⚪️ woman

🔘 200,000 word fanfic at 3 am