Working on this rewrite has definitely helped me improve as a writer.
I started the process thinking “Okay. I’ll change what I have to in order to make this better.”
But the more I worked on it, the more I thought “I like it the way it is. Maybe I don’t have to change anything.”
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
The whole point of the rewrite is to CHANGE IT TO MAKE IT BETTER. Look for ways to improve what’s already there.
Maybe it’s something small, or maybe it’s something that completely changes the dynamic, but no matter what, you do what’s necessary to make your script stronger. Even if you don’t want to, which makes it that much harder.
Case in point: DREAMSHIP has a supporting character I love. He was a blast to write, and I thought he had a pretty solid backstory, but some high-quality feedback opened my eyes to the fact that there needed to be more to him. How could I fix that? I ran through various scenarios until I found what I needed: flip his personality around.
And much to my amazement, everything I had come up with before not only still worked, but now even more so. He’s got more depth as a character, including a more satisfying arc, and I’ll be able to create more conflict with him in later scenes.
Lesson learned: I didn’t want to change something I considered ‘just fine the way it is,’ but I had to accept that those changes had to be made. Sure, they were hard to deal with at first, but they improved the story.
Now I’m not as hesitant about making changes, and my script is that much better for it.
Maximum Z 
A constant struggle. What I hate is when I come up with something–a catch phrase, a metaphor–that I adore but realize it doesn’t belong anywhere in what I’m working on. Sigh… 🙂 Jane
That as well. The hardest part really seems to be getting yourself to make the necessary change(s). After that, you wonder what took you so long.
Thanks for the follow!
Good encouragement for a crusty old hermit like myself. (Well, I’m not old exactly. But when I write, I am crusty and hermit-like.)
Also, the more I think of the rest of that song, the more I see it as a chronicle of the writing process. “I still don’t know what I was waiting for, and my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets. Every time I thought I’d got it made, It seemed the taste was not so sweet!”
What writer hasn’t gone through that!
Exactly. Thanks!