Hello fellow writers,
I was wondering if any of you had any advice on picking up an old project after it being shelved for quite some time? Where do I begin? Do I scrap everything and start again? I really want to see it finished, but feel overwhelmed every time I try and get back into the story line.
Thank you. Best regards, Charlotte
I'd second what Lucy and Elsie have said. Print it off, read it through (aloud if possible - it's amazing how many areas to improve things you can spot like that) and mark it up by hand. Then rewrite it as a fresh document, incorporating these changes. I use this process with my initial redrafting, and it works really well for bringing out the story
Hiya Charlotte. I hadn't looked at my work for a couple of years due to circumstances. When I did pick it up again I printed off the first three pages and read them. As I did I noticed where I could make changes so it would read better and began to alter the storyline. I did it with a pen by hand and I think that's what made the difference. Then I re-wrote the changed story again on the computer. It worked for me and it might be worth a try. Hope this helps.
Hello Charlotte. When I returned to an old project, I imagined I was starting writing it from scratch but used parts from the old draft that I found good, even if it's just a sentence here or a minor character there.
It's good to see an old project from (your own) fresh eyes but there's also no point in wasting good material that you've written.
So basically, my answer is - partly start from scratch by partly use what you wrote first time round.
Hope that makes sense and helps :-)