Re-Dream the Dream in Edits

I’m still working my way through Frey’s book, “How to Write a Damn Good Novel II”.

Today, I read about the ‘deadly mistake’ of the failure to learn how to re-dream the dream. Contrary to your likely assumption that this has something to do with goals or career aspirations in writers, it is actually about editing. Basically, Frey says that if you have a scene that needs editing or rewriting, don’t throw it out and create a new dream. Instead, sit down and re-dream the scene. Perhaps give the characters a new motivation or change up the actions of the scene somehow. Start the scene earlier. Mix it up and see what happens to the current dream. Hopefully it will be better.

For the most part, I have been doing this. However, I have not been doing it consciously. Usually my changing a scene that isn’t working results in me trimming it down–which is good to a point. What I will try to do is to consciously try to mix it up. One of my critique partners is actually pretty good at helping me with this. She drops hints on ways I could change up a scene–honestly the girl should be an editor! Sometimes I pick up her hints and make some changes. Problem is, I am a reluctant changer. Once I have a scene I tend to not want to restructure it very much. I guess, I need to re-dream the dream on a bigger scale than I have been doing.

Look out word processor, I’m re-dreaming the dream! Dear lord, what if I have to re-dream the whole friggin’ book? Yikes!