Letting Go of the Reins

When a Complete Rewrite Is the Right Choice

Steven James

We launch into our writing projects with so much confidence, so much reassurance that we know where things are going to go and what ground we’re going to cover. So we climb onto the horse and begin to ride along the path, and when the ideas that start unfolding before us don’t line up with what we had anticipated we would find, we keep yanking the reins back: Stay on the trail, girl. Don’t go off the path.

Writing instructors and craft books often warn us about the dangers of writing ourselves into a corner or taking rabbit trails. So no matter how much the story whinnies or stamps its feet or tries to veer off and explore other paths, we make sure it stays steady and true on the one we’ve laid out for it, toward that destination we’ve already predetermined is the right one.

Now you be a good story. Obey me. I am your master.

I spent a year working on my novel The Knight. It was my most ambitious project yet—an intricate thriller exploring the question of what’s more important, justice or truth, interwoven with a storyline of a killer who was reenacting crimes from a thirteenth-century manuscript that’d been condemned by the Catholic Church. Tense. Interesting. Lots of intrigue and moral quandaries. From the time I started writing the book, I was certain I knew the villain’s identity. I was quite pleased with myself, actually, and constructed the entire story around the twist that would reveal who was truly behind the crimes. However, getting that climax to work proved to be a challenge. No matter how I tweaked things, they just didn’t feel right. The novel was due to my publisher on August 1, and I had to get an extension to September 1. Then October 1. Then November 10.

“We really need it by November 10,” my editor told me.

“No problem,” I assured her, just as any good author would, even as the story kept seeking another trail and I kept yanking it back onto this one—and kept not finishing the manuscript.

Finally, on November 7, I was at the airport to fly out to teach at a conference for the next three days. My plan: Speak during the day and then furiously edit each night. It would be an insane schedule, but I told myself I could pull it off.

As I was walking through airport security, a crazy thought came to me: Steve, you have the wrong killer. That’s why this story isn’t working.

Then another voice, the rational one: I’ll find a way. I’ve known how this story ends for the past year.

No, you need to change who the killer is.

Leave me alone.

As hard as I tried to wrestle the story over to the right, it kept trying to take me left. At last, I had to admit that if I kept things as they were, readers would bristle: That’s cheating. There’s no way we could have guessed he was the killer. That came out of nowhere! However, if I added more clues, it would become too easy to predict that he was the mastermind behind everything. I needed a different antagonist, one whom readers wouldn’t anticipate but would accept: Yes, of course. That makes total sense. Why didn’t I see that coming? The conclusion was painfully clear: To make things work, to make the story’s end both unexpected and inevitable, I needed a different villain. And I knew exactly which character it needed to be. The bronco bucked, and I let it take me down a new path—a trail that I hadn’t even known existed until an hour earlier.

I spent the flight jotting down what switching to a different killer would precipitate. Change after change, causing change after change. At the very least, I needed to add an entirely new storyline, alter relationships, change the clue progression, and recast the ending. Trail after trail, turn after turn, running all throughout the 125,000-word manuscript, and all of those pathways would be passing through up-until-now uncharted territory.

We landed in Cincinnati, and I phoned my editor. “Hey!”

“Hey.”

“I have some good news.”

“Oh. What’s that?”

“This is going to be an even better story than we thought.”

“Excellent.”

“I’m going to change who the killer is.”

There was a long pause. I got ready to argue my case, to unload all the reasons why I needed to make this change, but finally she just said, “As long as it’ll be a better book, I trust you. Go ahead.”

Rewriting the book took another two months. New paths, each one leading to another. But in the end, it really was a better book. My editor knew it. I knew it. And although readers had no idea about the change, I think if they could see how I’d veered away from my original plan, they would agree as well that this path was better.

A few takeaways from all of this:

• Listen to your story. Stop assuming, and start responding. Let the logic of the story guide you rather than imposing your agenda on it. Hand over the reins. Take those rabbit trails, and seek out the corners—because often that’s where the best ideas will be found.
• Take time to process your instincts. A fresh perspective helps, so regularly step away from your work. Live a little between your drafts. Ask those tectonic plate–shifting questions, and don’t muzzle your instincts.
• Trust the creative process. Over the course of time, I’ve finally realized that I need to place my confidence in the creative process, not in the decisions I make prior to embarking on the journey into the story.

There, off the beaten path, along that ridge that looks a little too intimidating and dangerous ... yeah, that’s probably the route you need to take. The story wants to gallop in a new direction.

Let it.