7 reasons to rewrite

A few years ago, I wrote a story, and it was perfect. It was the simple story of the day I met a girl in Italy. After a few rounds of edits and rewrites, I thought it was as well written as I could make it.

I was wrong. Everything we write can be improved and the fact that we like a particular piece should never place it out of reach of the editor’s red pen. After I posted this story on Medium, Chris Sowers contacted me and said he wanted to share it in Tell Your Story but felt it could be improved.

While I was curious to see what changes he might suggest, I was also apprehensive since the story, much like the event itself, has a special place in my heart. On the other hand, I’d put all of my craft into that piece, and the opportunity to have a professional critique it for me was one I didn’t want to pass up. Besides, what could he possibly have to say about a story that was, basically, perfect?

A lot, it appears. At a first glance, I was amazed to see comments for things I should cut out or expand upon and my initial response was defensive. This was my story that I had crafted exactly how I wanted it to be and, while I could immediately see his recommendations might improve it, I couldn’t bring myself to alter it.

After a few days, I went back and cut out a minor points Chris had suggested. I could already see how it improved the flow of the story but I left it like that for a week or so before going back and reading through his other comments.

Suddenly, I was taken by a mania to write it again. I couldn’t stop myself. For the next few days, I didn’t want to work on anything else. One of his most salient points had been that I was telling the story, not showing it. Familiar as I am with “show don’t tell” when it came to that story, I hadn’t used it much.

What I learned from rewriting

• Show don’t tell. I know, I know. This is fundamental to storytelling but for some reason, I’d forgotten it. I had written one long narrative with no dialogue. Yet my story is about the meeting of two people and the time they spend together. Rewriting with dialogue and conversations meant the protagonists could come to life and become real people. I allowed the story to unfold organically, rather than constrain the reader with a narrative.
• Don’t be too honest. I’d reached across the mists of time to write my story and as such my memories were a bit foggy, and I’d incorporated that as a lack of detail. The story was special to me and I’d wanted to represent it without embellishments, but it’s the details that make a story great. As writers, we are not obliged to give exact renditions of events, but to imbue those events with personality and make them come alive in the mind of the reader. The narrative is the washing line you erect in your garden, but it is the characters you hang on that line that blow in the wind and attract your neighbours’ attention.

After rewriting the entire story, it has now resumed its pride of place as one of my favourite pieces I have ever written. You can read the revised version of Brief Encounters in Bologna here, and if you’d like to compare it to the original version, you will find that below.

The girl I met that day is a person I shall almost definitely never meet again, so if you happen to know her, please direct her to this story.

Seven reasons why you should dust off your old stories and give them a thorough rewrite.

1. You’re definitely a better writer now. Every time we write, we improve in our craft. Writing is a journey and every story teaches you something new. Any masterpieces you may have saved away on a hard drive somewhere were probably written over a year ago. That’s a whole year of you learning more about writing. Today-you could definitely teach year-ago-you a thing or two about how to write well.
2. Your subconscious has been rewriting it in your head anyway. A writer’s brain never stops thinking about stories we’re going to write, are writing or have written. While you were sleeping, in the shower or cooking dinner, your brain was running improvements to those stories, you just need to shake them out and give them shape.
3. You can work on your editing skills. Looking at your work cold means you can develop your editor’s eye. With a detached perspective, you will see how it reads without being too protective and you’ll be in a better position to kill your darlings and create something which is genuinely better.
4. You get to appreciate your work as a reader would. Work that you haven’t read for a year or so will have faded in your memory. Word choices won’t be clear to you now, so you’ll be seeing things as a first-time reader would.
5. You can only improve on it. The story was obviously good enough, that’s why you thought it was worth revisiting in the first place. Whether you expand upon, cut it down or rewrite it completely, it’s going to be better when you’ve finished your latest edits.
6. You’ve got a finished story to play with. Sitting in front of an empty document is daunting, and that first draft down is the one that takes the effort. When you go back, you’ve already got that framework set up for you, now all you need to do is perfect the covering you’re going to hang over it.
7. You learn to see your writing as a fluid process. There’s always room for improvement in what we write, and it’s important not to let certain writing styles calcify. Even our sacred literary cows need to be dragged out every once in a while and scrutinised. It’s the work that you hold most dear, which shows what you can really do and is the best yardstick for your writing.

"Brief Encounters in Bologna" (original)

In 2002, the World Cup was in Japan, so matches shown at a reasonable time on the other side of the world were shown in Europe somewhere between eight in the morning and midday; a time usually reserved for breakfast, not drinking. But as a twenty-five-year-old Englishman living in Italy, I was happy to substitute tea and cornflakes, make that coffee and a brioche, I was in Italy remember, for beer and pizza.

While I was no stranger to drinking, morning drinking was something of a novelty for me. I also have absolutely no interest in football whatsoever. This meant that not long after the game started, I was already a) slightly tipsy and b) fairly bored. Sat in an Irish pub somewhere in Bologna’s student district, my eyes started wandering around for something more interesting, and what they wandered to was an attractive girl with long dark hair sitting alone at one of the wooden benches, showing about as much interest in the match as I was. Her hair fell down straight, it wasn’t tied back, and she pulled it over to one side to keep it out of her face while she poured over her book. She was just sat there with her head in a book, minding her own business; and that was all the invitation I needed to go over and talk to her.

So I drank up, went to the toilet, and on my way out, plonked myself down opposite her and started talking. I’m not sure about what about but it was probably something to do with the book she was reading. I can never resist knowing what people are reading, particularly when they are sitting there minding their own business.

Our first encounter didn’t last long, and after a polite but firm brush off, I went back to my friends, the football, and, presumably, another drink. A pint or so later, and I needed the toilet again; my drink to bathroom ratio dropped quite low that morning. Once again, as I came out of the bathroom, I sat back down opposite her just as before, only this time I got a little smile. A recognition of my persistence? Slightly flattered that I’d come back after having been told where to go in no uncertain terms the first time? Who knows? Anyway, this time, we had a bit of a chat, and among other things, I found out she was French, spoke a bit of English, and was here to find certain books from the university library.

Conversation over, I headed back to my friends, the beer and the football again, until the next toilet break, that is. Drunker than was good for me at this time of the morning. I swaggered past her to the bathroom again, only this time we shot each other a quick look, and both knew that when I staggered out again, I would sit down and continue our conversation. And that’s just what I did. I was even greeted with an I’d-been-expecting-you smile as I sat down. Our chat went on longer this time, and by the end of it, she agreed to meet me for a drink that evening.

Filled with excitement, I headed back to my friends, only to be met with more good news: the match had finished as well. One of the teams had won, no idea which. My extracurricular activities had paid off, a morning which might have been spent watching football had turned out to be much more interesting, so it was time to head home, get something to eat and probably fall asleep for a few hours.

We met that evening, in one of the piazzas of Bologna. I carried on drinking, I used to do a lot of that in those days, but she didn’t. That was the day I learned the Italian word for apricot, it’s albicocca, which is what she drank that evening; it’s odd how some of my Italian vocabulary has such specific mnemonic links. I can’t say the evening was magical, but it was pleasant. We spoke about whatever, and I smoked a lot of cigarettes. I used to do a lot of that too. I’m fairly sure I asked if I could kiss her too at a certain point, and got a firm but friendly no. At the time, I was disappointed by this. Of course, I was, who wouldn’t be? But it didn’t matter that much to me; I’d had a wonderfully surprising day, it had started with the boredom of watching football, progressed to the challenge of charming a stranger, and ended with an evening out with a beautiful girl.

Eager to try my luck again, I asked for a second date, and my heart sank when she told me she was leaving the next morning and heading back to Paris. What could I do? Our time was over. We’d had our evening, and that was what mattered. So, when it was time, we said our goodbyes, I think I tried for a kiss again, got another polite knock-back, and we went our separate ways.

I went home happy that night. My expectations for the day had been completely blown away. Of course, there was an element of vanity in my wellbeing. I’d managed to convince a total stranger to come out with me. But beyond this, there was a sense of clipped potential. A sense of wondering what could have been. Regardless, the story was over and I had to accept that I would never see her again.

At some point over the next few days, I was drinking with my friends again, and one of them asked how my date had gone. Before I could finish the story, one of the others told me that she was a bitch anyway and had lied to me because he’d seen her sat at a different pub down the road the following day, studying again. This made me the butt of everyone’s joke for a while, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me that she had lied. Of course, she had. I'm fairly certain she had a boyfriend back in Paris. But nothing she had said or done could detract from the moment or moments we’d shared. In the space of one day, our relationship had gone from a disinterested leave-me-alone to having a chat, to going out for a drink, and I reckon if geography, time, existing boyfriends and all social constraints and realities hadn’t been an issue, maybe even further.

For me, her trip to Bologna did end when we said goodbye that evening. It didn’t matter if she was still there the next day. What mattered was that one day, when I’d been looking for something more interesting to do than watch football, I’d found someone else; someone I could laugh with, talk to and share a few moments with. In the end, life is nothing more than a connected stream of moments, and if we can make more of them pleasurable than unpleasurable, we’re doing it right.

I never could convince my friends that I didn’t care if they’d seen her the next day or not. Nothing physical ever happened between us, to be honest, I don’t think I even touched her hand, but there was a different type of connection. I enjoy my memory of this story; it is a small insignificant event in my life that holds great importance for me. Her name? Of course, I asked her name on the day, but for the life of me, I have no idea what it was. Something French, maybe Judith, I like that idea.

That day is a fond memory for me, and I like to look back on it and reflect on how human connections can be formed, and sometimes, I wonder if she does too.