How-to

Worried that all that writing you’re doing might eventually end up in the bin? Here’s why your words are never wasted, even if they don’t make the final cut.

Tension square. 

These two words, without fail, elicit a groan in me every time I see them at the top of a knitting pattern. 

If you’ve ever been seduced by a silky skein of wool, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the concept of tension squares. They ask the knitter to make a small test square using the yarn and needles required for the pattern to check their tension – that is, how tight or loose they naturally knit. If you have more stitches per centimetre than the pattern indicates, you need to loosen your knitting. If you have fewer, you need to tighten up. 

It’s a quality-control process that good crafters understand and follow, knowing that if their tension is off they won’t wind up with a well-made garment in the end. It will look shrunken and silly, or hang limp and uneven. Taking the time to check their tension at the start can insure them against a disappointing finish. 

Unfortunately, I’m not one of those crafters. 

To me, tension squares have always felt like a waste of time. I’m excited to start the project and I want the finished product yesterday. 

That’s fine if I’m making something like a scarf or a beanie. But for a garment? Well, let’s just say I’ve never made a jumper I’d wear in public. 

Patience makes perfect

My refusal to sit with the tedium of knitting tension squares has always held me back from achieving my goal of making a beautiful jumper, cardigan or vest. I’m simply too impatient to be a great crafter.

I think the same can apply to the craft of writing. 

I know a lot of writers worry about the possibility that they’re putting in loads of writing time and effort only to have to abandon great swathes of copy at some distant point in the future. They think:

• What if an editor suggests cutting a whole section of the book? 
• What if a publisher insists on changing the point of view or adding a new character? 
• What if I wake up one day and decide the plot is all wrong, the main character sucks and I hate the ending? 

Writing a book is a lot like knitting in that it’s a skill that takes a lot of practice – and even more patience. 

You’ll start off excited to work on your idea and see where it ends up, but it’s slow and painstaking work. You might drop a stitch and have to work backwards to fix the hole. And at some point in the process, you might find yourself pulling on a loose thread and unravelling the whole damn thing down to nothing. 

So, is it a waste if you had to pull out your work and start from scratch? Well, maybe, but only if you think you have nothing to learn. 

Yes, it hurts to cut chapters you spent hours putting down or to give up on a character you once loved. But those early drafts weren’t wasted. The process of writing them taught you about structure, narrative arcs, characterisation, dialogue, showing vs telling, deep point of view. They might even inspire new stories further down the track. 

What about writing exercises? Like tension squares, practices such as interviewing your characters, writing a detailed backstory or testing out a different narrative tense might feel like a distraction from the main game – finishing your novel – but they’re not as pointless as they can seem. 

Sure, they’re time consuming and they might not ever make it to the published page. But are they a waste? No. They’re an opportunity to work on your craft and expand your skills. A quality-control process to ensure that the finished product is polished, engaging, and definitely worth showing off in public. 

Five ways to reframe your rewrite

If you’re struggling to let go of some of your darlings or worried that you’re wasting your words, try these tips: 

• Create a safety net: Put any cut material into a separate word file and save it. You might come back to it later, you might not. Tell yourself it’s still valued material by keeping it on file. 

• Set a time limit for your writing practice. If you’ve been staring at your screen for 15 minutes and feel like the words aren’t flowing, don’t force it – you’re unlikely to love the work you create in this mood. Put your laptop away and come back to it later when you’re in a more creative mindset. 

• Try writing just for fun, sometimes. Don’t pressure yourself to create something amazing or reach a certain stage in your novel every time you sit down to write. Practise writing for the joy of it – try writing some flash fiction, pen a poem or just free-journal your thoughts.  

• Make a plan for your rewrite. Don’t just dive in – go through your manuscript with a critical eye and pinpoint what areas need work, then follow through systematically. Not sure where to start? An editor can give you sensitive, professional feedback on your story and a plan for how to strengthen its weak points. Check out my structural editing service here.

• Accept that rewriting is part of the process, no matter how far along you are in your writing journey. Even the best, most accomplished authors write multiple drafts of their novels. As Anne Lamott says, “Almost all writing begins with terrible first efforts.”