Rewriting and Rhythm; Polishing for Your Audience

As an editor, one of the first things I tell writers is to consider your audience. Always consider your reading audience. There is nothing more disturbing than reading an article or book that jumps from subject to subject or makes huge leaps in logic without considering the reader's point of reference. Equally disgruntling is a writer who jumps right into a train of thought or a social reference that applies to a fairly large portion of the reading population, but discounts the possibility of drawing in additional readers outside of the book's target market.

As a writer, you will do well to consider these things. While it is not necessary to make elementary explanations of ideas or subjects that are common knowledge to a large portion of the readers, you must make it easy enough for the unexpected reader to catch onto. In this lesson, we will discuss how to make your manuscript better so that your editor gives it a warm reception. The biggest step in making your editor receptive of your work is to write in a manner that demonstrates a consideration for the reader. You will want to rewrite to get the bumps out, give thought to your sentence rhythm, and polish your manuscript as much as is reasonably possible in order to gain favor with your editor.

Rewriting and Rhythm

Rewriting is something that you, as the writer, should do before you submit your material to your editor. It is essential in creating a publishable work. Often dismissed or disregarded by those who think they are extremely talented, rewriting your material is something that will serve you well in the long run because it has little to do with talent and more to do with excellence. When you rewrite your material, you are looking to correct or redesign a sentence, paragraph, or segment so that it has a greater appeal and flow to its reading audience.

There is a technical side to rewriting that includes the mechanics of sentence structure and grammar, but that is work more commonly addressed by the editor than by the writer. What I want to do here is to emphasize to the novice writer that you have a responsibility to take your material and rewrite it to its best form before submitting it. The editor does not expect you to have an editor's skills, nor does every editor edit in the same manner if handed the exact same material. The idea is to go through your article, story, or book and make an honest effort to refine it before submitting it to your editor or client.

It is important to communicate to you that you should not attempt a rewrite or refinement before you have completed the entire content of your manuscript. Many novice writers throw themselves into a writer's block by trying to perfect every thought, topic and sentence before moving on to the next segment or chapter of their writing. If you try to perfect as you go, then you will never complete your book or story. Editors generally earn their pay even if you do an excellent job of rewriting and refining before submission. But you will never get to the editor's desk if you think you should or could write perfectly as you go.

Here are some tips I often give new writers for rewriting and refinement:

1. First and foremost, finish your writing; don't rewrite before your article or book is completed.


2. When you rewrite your manuscript, you want to check for the obvious faux pas and correct them to the best of your ability; don't focus on issues of style or editorial tastes because that is the editor's work.


3. Make sure that your logic and the flow of your content work well for the subject that you have written on and for the finished material as well.


4. Check your flow and if you are bumpy, then use hooks or paragraph add-ins to smooth out the flow. Make sure your reader does not have to work to read your material or to follow your points.


5. A rewrite is primarily to check for bumpy logic and issues of flow; only these problems require minor or significant rewrites. Find them, address them, rewrite them, and do your best to smooth things out because you will not want your editor to do it for you. When an editor handles a partial rewrite, entire segments of your material can be deleted or you can run the risk of losing your meaning in the rewritten segment.


Rhythm is also important when handling a rewrite because it is an element of writing that you will want to address while dealing with logic and flow issues. To simplify the idea of linguistic rhythm, think of brush strokes in a painting or the pace at which you jog. The rhythm of your writing is very similar. Rhythm deals with both the length and cadence of the words in your sentence structure and with the length and cadence of your sentences inside of each paragraph.

Another way to think of rhythm is to think of nursery rhymes or poetry.

"Hickory, dickory, dock. The mouse ran up the clock." Has a very staccato rhythm to it; one that sticks in the minds of preschoolers. The purpose of rhythm in your writing is to make it memorable. Good writing doesn't need to be like a child's rhyme or elementary poetry in order to be memorable; after all, the goal is not memorization, but impression. Good writing is made better by mindfulness toward the linguistic rhythm of the words.

In thinking of your writing's rhythm, you want to structure your sentences in a memorable way and you want to use both short and long sentences in your manuscript. In alternating your sentence length, you will give it an unspoken cadence. Ideally, short sentences are five to eight words in length; long sentences are three to five lines in length. Unless you become a sophisticated writer, such as Proust, avoid sentences longer than five typewritten lines.
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