If the cast of your book is too wide, readers will lose track. Their is nothing more annoying than having to keep checking back, in a novel, to see who so-and-so is. And if you have too many really distinctive characters it could be overwhelming. You don’t want the minor players to outshine the leading cast members.

So I’ve always tried to shave my number of characters down to the bare minimum. The ones who survive are there for a reason. No, they mustn’t outshine the lead but they still play a crucial role, as long as they serve one or more of the following purposes:

Demonstrate the themes of the story

My last novel, Forgive Me Not, is about Emma, a recovered alcoholic, who goes home to the village of Healdbury to try to make amends after tearing apart her family and causing uproar in the community.  As the title indicates, forgiveness is a big theme of this story and the villagers reflect this. Some cannot forget her old behaviours and the trouble she caused. Others, over the course of the story come to realise they too are flawed and everyone deserves a second chance.  All the people she encounters again serve their place, even those who only appear very briefly. Like the elderly woman, in the street, shop owner Mrs Beatty, who crosses the road immediately when she sees Emma approaching on the pavement when she first returns to the village. This minor character’s one simple action tells the reader what Emma used to be like and suggests she is not going to have an easy time trying to fit back into her old life and make amends to those people she hurt.

Show something about the main character

Stig, the homeless man Emma used to know, gives the community insight into what life used to be like for her. It might be shocking for them to hear that the protagonist used to live on Manchester’s streets. It might confirm villagers’ preconceived ideas about the sort of people who end up as rough sleepers, that Emma really must be a no-good no-hoper. But then they get to know Stig, a gentle soul, who once had a good job as a geography teacher but who lost everything due to mental health problems. He demonstrates to the villagers that any one of them, given a certain set of unfortunate circumstances, could lose their home. His appearance in the novel questions any assumptions that might be made about Emma and how much she deserved to find herself homeless. He adds another dimension to her character from the villagers point of view. He is a window into where she has been for the last couple of years.

Another more minor character is runaway homeless teenager Tilly. Her purpose is to show how Emma really has changed – the Emma in addiction only thought about herself. Now she wants to help those less fortunate and Tilly brings out her maternal side.

Then there is Dash, the three-legged dog Emma grew up with. Yes, even animal characters must earn their place. He is overjoyed at her return, despite her selfish and unpredictable behaviours displayed before leaving the village.  His unconditional love shows the reader that there must be good inside her – that once she really must have been a decent person. In fact I’ve just finished a project where a kitten plays rather an important role. It is there, in the background, throughout the novel, and at the end we realise just how significant its presence has been for the main character.

They embellish the setting

In Forgive Me Not there are flashbacks to Emma’s past. A violent rough-sleeper who beats her up personifies the drab, threatening, dangerous, solitary place Emma has found herself in. Whereas the appealing rabbits and pigs on the farm in present time, with their colour and playfulness, reflect the happy, carefree, nurtured, safe, communal life she left behind.

So think carefully about your  minor characters because they contribute massively to themes, plot, setting, so many aspects of your novel. What’s their point? If they don’t have one, get rid. Like so much in writing, it won’t be a waste. They might suit a future story.

When I first started out writing I didn’t really understand what a rewrite was all about. I just thought it was for refining the words – felt I’d worked hard on my first draft and that was enough; all that remained was to check it flowed pleasantly. And to be totally honest I think part of it was laziness. It can be gruelling writing a novel – certainly when you are just starting out and aren’t used to the process – and the thought that I needed to look at the whole manuscript once more felt overwhelming.

This is probably why it took me several unpublished manuscripts to bag an agent! And to appreciate that the rewrite was a valuable opportunity to look at the project with fresh eyes – from a distance, at a less involved level, to really make sure that each component of the story (plotting, characterisation etc) was doing its job properly. And to not be scared of deconstructing the story. You have to be brave to make your novel the very best it can be.

So for anyone else who sometimes finds it difficult to know what the next step is, after finishing a first draft, the following – in my experience – are common reasons to rewrite:

The settings aren’t vibrant enough. Not only do settings help the reader visualise where the characters are, they can also reflect mood or hint at plot.  So during the rewrite I focus on really involving all of the five senses. Say my protagonist visits a coffee shop – I’ll develop the smells and noises. I’m thinking coffee grinding, a till bleeping, customers deep in chat, cutlery on plates. Delicious aromas might accompany a feel-good scene or give welcome relief after a drama, along with a warm, visually cosy decor. The amount of work you need to do will largely depend on how detailed your first draft is but speaking for myself I often get so excited about the plot and dialogue and focus on those things, that my first draft settings suffer.

By the same token characters are not fully developed. I don’t think much about my protagonist before I start a new manuscript. I just dive in and keep continually going back to tweak him/her as I go. By around Chapter 6 I usually have an in-depth idea of what they are like and can then just continue  moving forwards. However, as I mentioned above, when I write first draft I don’t do this with the minor characters that are mostly created as I go along. Consequently during the first read-through I’ve just done I even found I had to completely change some of the supporting cast’s motivations. This  meant adding in a couple of chapters. Minor characters are there to assist the plot and show important dimensions of the protagonist – how/why they were as they were, how/why they’ve changed. So whilst minor in presence, they are major in importance and should be fully thought-through and rounded.

The pace hasn’t resulted in a gripping read. There are not enough hooks to keep the reader turning the page – or there are but they are in the wrong places. Lulls in action (important because the reader needs to catch their breath) have resulted in unnecessary scenes that don’t move the plot forwards or develop the main character – this is something I personally have to watch out for. I like nothing more than sitting my characters down, for a chat, over a cup of coffee to recover from recent drama but more often than not these scenes serve no real purpose. Every page of the book has to earn its place in some way.

The narrative needs refining. For the most part my first draft is thrown down onto the page – that’s the best way I can describe it. So the metaphors or similes aren’t necessary appropriate. The rhythm of the sentences might not flow easily. There’s repetition. I might use adverbs too liberally. I might show – or tell – too much (I’m a great believer in tell having its place!) For me the main point of writing is to exactly transfer my thoughts and emotions onto the page. Sometimes this takes time, so I compromise during the first draft. The rewrite will be when I might consult my thesaurus, and will really hone my craft and rethink words and sentences with care. Because if I get hung-up on doing this during the first-draft I can lose my mojo and come to a halt. And I find it’s such a joy and so satisfying during the rewrite to really take my time and polish or restructure what’s already on the page.

The dialogue needs working on. It might not sound natural. Or may not sound unique to each character speaking it. Perhaps it contains superfluous words.  I find I am always having to remove Yes and No’s. Certain dialogue tags may not be necessary (he said, she called, etc). And this time around I had to remove many nods and smiles that accompanied my characters’ speech.

And other aspects of editing, editing, editing such as tightening sentences and checking continuity, the timeline and tense. Book 11 was written in the first person present, this Book 12 in the first person past. On reading through I found that I’d slipped into the present many times and had to change that.

Also double-check your facts. If you include anything written in a foreign language, is it correct? Have you thoroughly researched anything historical? What about locations? If, like me, you don’t do all of the necessary research before the first draft, then the rewrite process may not involve checking but finding out things for the first time.

Take a step back from your personal experience. As writers we inevitably put ourselves and aspects of our lives into our stories – emotions, themes, perhaps even characters or plot. This is ploughed into the first draft. But don’t make the mistake of thinking this means you don’t need to still do research. My latest release, Forgive Me Not was inspired by my own journey through addiction services but I still found I needed to interview case workers to make sure the detail of the novel was spot on. It’s also about Alzheimer’s and my family has suffered experience of this – but everyone’s experience is unique and I still researched how this disease might have affected other people differently. During the rewrite take a step back and consider if you have explored all aspects of your themes or if it’s one-sided by being simply based on what you’ve gone through yourself.

Some rewrites need to be more brutal – and this may be discovered after passing your manuscript on to a trusted beta reader, editor or agent. I virtually had to start Forgive Me Not again from scratch and I blogged about that here.

Whatever your reasons to rewrite accepting, in advance, that there will be some helps soften the blow when you come to that first read-through or receive initial feedback. First drafts are never oven-ready for publication and try to see this as a positive. Don’t be afraid of cutting or reconstructing. Now it’s your chance to really make that precious story sing!

Good luck!

I sent off my latest manuscript and eagerly awaited feedback. Finally it arrived. I opened the email and… Okay. I admit it. Cue a mini meltdown. The suggestion was that the book needed stripping right back to the original kernel of the idea. Chapters needed down-sizing into paragraphs, or cutting out completely. A good number of characters needed to disappear.

We’re talking a major rethink. We’re talking murdering many darlings. Or possibly ditching the book.

This was new. In the past – and I’ve had eight books published, now – I’ve had what I call “extensive” rewrites but now I realise they weren’t. At the most they’ve meant restructuring a plotline or adding emotion or developing a protagonist further. My first drafts have rarely needed fundamental changes. I plan each chapter in detail before I write. At the end of the process I’m more of a tweaker and that seems to have worked. I’m not used to completely pulling apart a finished draft.

So this has come as something of a shock.

Especially as, when I send off my first draft, I am always in what I call  “delusional X-factor contestant mode”. I make no apologies for this. It’s necessary for me if I want to write any book. I need to think it is going to change the world!

This meglomania doesn’t last forever, of course. My feet soon settle back onto the ground during the process of rewriting and editing, of publishing and getting reviews… but I need to feel super excited and confident about any project at the beginning. So when this feedback came back I wasn’t sure what to do.

I had two options. Move onto my next project (which I’m very enthusiastic about) or tackle the major rewrite. And of course, sometimes there are genuinely valid reasons for moving on. My advice, here, is listen to your heart and talk it through with reliable and knowledgeable writerly confidantes. I shelved several projects before getting published because I could not re-ignite my motivation and I think, deep down, that was because I realised those stories were never going to work.

Indeed, my first reaction in this instance? With all my confidence gone and feeling despondent, I decided to start my next book and leave this one either to stay permanently under the bed or revisit at some point in the future. I decided fixing the problems would involve too much work and take too long.

However, something unexpected happened overnight. The characters began to talk to me. Ideas slowly formulated around which needed scrapping and how to improve the remaining ones. Then new plotlines twitched in my brain. I woke up feeling rather excited. Eventually, after a day or two, I realised that this book, this story still existed – I just had the  opportunity now to really make it shine, having already done a lot of the groundwork.

I mapped out all the chapters and almost enjoyed slashing some out and combining others together. As for the characters, it’s not proving to be as hard as I expected to ditch some even though, in my head, they’d become my friends.

Perhaps they’ll resurface one day in another story. And that is the essence of embracing the major rewrite – realising that what you have to lose is not a waste. Characters can be used again and all of that prose you wrote is practice – continually you are improving your craft.

I’ve now regained some confidence and cringe when I think about the initial version. I’m grateful for the knowledge I now have of where and why I went wrong. This should help with my next draft and future projects.

So here’s my own advice for embracing a major rewrite -and if you’ve any tips then please do share them!

Sure, throw a little pity party and lick your wounds when vigorous feedback comes back. Eat chocolate. Take a long bath. Grieve for the story you believe you have lost. But don’t let this stage last too long.

Sleep on it. Even take a break for a few days. Try to stand back. Put your ego to one side when asking yourself if the editorial suggestions are valid.

Don’t see it as having to start over again. See it as simply continuing with, and fully fleshing out, a plot and characters you have already well developed. Refuse to see slashed characters and chapters as wasted.

Realise that if someone takes the time to give you detailed feedback, be that a potential agent, signed agent, editor or critque partner, they believe in your writing. 

As a resident Mancunian, I’d say  make your mantra “You don’t get owt for nowt”. Yes, writing can be bloody hard work.

Remind yourself that a first draft is called that for a reason. It isn’t the last.

Compare starting another story from scratch, to *starting* one where you’ve already worked extensively on the nuts and bolts. No contest!

Good luck!