Tag Archives: when to rewrite

Rewrite: Pancaking

pancakes on plate
Photo by NastyaSensei on Pexels.com

I recently finished a draft of my current work. I also changed computers and am not sure how to get my word processing program to work on my new one. Because I don’t want to worry too much about the draft I had. I knew it was full of problems.I’m going to be rewriting.

Awhile back, I went to a very small writer’s conference (I don’t know if it would really qualify) in my town. One of the classes there was about doing “pancake” drafts. Essentially, you do a full re-write with each draft.

grayscale photography of person holding pen
Photo by Todoran Bogdan on Pexels.com

While I don’t want to re-write my project more than once. I will be completely writing the story over now.

Reasons for Doing a Pancake rewrite

I have a couple of reasons for wanting to rewrite the story instead of revise. They are:

  • One of my main characters is lacking motivation. In order to fix that, I need to change a bunch of stuff.
  • Sometimes, my characters are just talking, it’s a little boring. I think that I can make those parts more active.
  • My antagonist needs a better reason to act.
  • I’m thinking of pulling a POV character, and possibly changing the POV completely.

The idea of a pancake draft is you completely put away your previous draft. Meaning, you aren’t looking at the last draft. You aren’t checking on how things are working out from draft to draft. You are simply going to write again. The nice thing about doing it this way, is that you already wrote the story. You know how it goes; you are just ironing out the kinks.

purple leafed plants
Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

I would suggest not using a pancake draft if you have a really nice draft that doesn’t have large problems that need fixing. I would also suggest doing it with caution, because writing an entire draft is a lot of work.

Finally, I decided to do a draft this way, not only because I wanted to try it out. But, because I feel like my work has some good things. It has many problems and will benefit from a full rewrite. Let me know if you’ve ever done a pancake draft. If so, what did you think of it? Did you feel like your next draft was stronger?

Stacy Jensen

Stacy has a Bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Human Resources Management from USU and is currently working on her masters in Learning Experience Design. When she’s not busy with school or her home life, she loves reading all things horror and sci-fi fantasy, and writing, writing, writing.

Editing: Rewriting

There are different kinds of editing. It’s safe to say that a writer will end up going through several different editing passes, and types when writing almost anything. Right now, I’m going to discuss one type of editing: rewriting.

Rewriting is something that I’ve done a lot of. Typically, when I wrote a paper, I would then look it over, and usually rewrite around 75%. I usually say that I write “into” my first draft. That I figure out what I’m trying to say after I’ve already started.

Editing:Rewriting Photo by Suzy Hazelwood

When you are going into your first edit, it is important to decide what kind of edit you are doing. If you need to do editing: rewriting, there are a few ways to tell right off the bat:

  • Did your point of view shift?
  • Has your protagonist changed?
  • Did you start with one idea and now you are working with a different one?

If the answers to any of these questions is yes, then you will be well-suited to go into the editing:rewriting mode, instead of a revision, or another type of edit that we’ll discuss later (read: line edit, proofread, or even beta read).

How do you go about a rewrite?

  • The first thing is to determine what you want to keep.
  • Then, take the things you are getting rid of (unless you are doing a complete overhaul, then just open a new document) and place those in their own document, so nothing is lost.
  • Go to where the story last made sense, and then you can start outlining from there, or you can just start your rewrite. Depending on what kind of writer you are.

The process can vary. There is a process for rewriting called pancake drafting. This involves making several drafts one after another. You don’t read any draft, and you just keep going until you feel you have it right. I haven’t ever done this, but I have started from scratch with only the story in my head.

Pancake “draft” Photo by Olenka Sergienko

At the end of the day, when it comes to editing: rewriting, there are many ways to go about it. The most important part is to identify that it’s necessary. Then, it’s up to the writer to figure out what works for them.

Thank you for reading, and please let me know if you want to know more about the pancake draft, or anything else! Thanks!