Rewrites. How far should you go?

[Drakon]

Exactly as the topic says.

People rewrite stories for numerous reasons. Cleaning up plotholes, tightning up prose, polishing up grammar, etc.

But at what point should you transition from "rewrite" to "write a whole new story"?

Is it a magical percentage that you cross? A certain number of pages? Or is it something else?

Personally, I'm of the belief that if you're changing who the antagonists and protagonists are, you're probably better off writing a new story.

 

[Beth Pavell]

If you end up changing a story to the point where the original summary no longer fits, it's probably no longer a rewrite and becomes a whole new story, I feel

 

[Caite-chan]

My Loving Hope story is on it's third version. I know my first try I was just all over the place almost like a bunch of one shots put together and I had to redo it. The second version I tried to slow down the story a bit more and got up to 30 chapters and realized I didn't like the direction it was going in. Which brings me to the version I have posted here. The first 3 chapters are the only ones I have kept since the beginning other than maybe fixing them up.

I'm one to jump right into things without a reason. I've been trying to slow things down and write them out better.

 

[Persephone]

I mostly agree with Pavell's advice. For me, I would do it if the changes you want to make to the published story would also require serious edits to the future chapters of the story. If a change is so fundamental that nearly all of the fic would need at least partially edited, go with a new one. If you want to fix a random error or clarify a line of dialogue in either a 'make story better' or 'subtle retcon' move, that wouldn't require a new story.

 

[Life]

I think it's "a magical percentage that you cross". If you change too much about the story, or a fundamental part of it, you're better off starting anew. Though if you're only changing something two/three chapters worth, I don't think it's worth it.

I'm on my second version of Poison Touch, as the name implies, and it's because I've drastically changed things. Aside from having the same name, the protagonists are very different, the setting is in another region, and the plot changes also. I think that changing your protagonist is a key signal to start a new story. If you want to switch settings, then maybe try to transition so that it works out? And as long as you haven't established anything with the plot in the future, I think it would also be okay to just tweak things a bit.

 

[Glitchipedia]

I've zigzagged across the definitions given in this thread quite a bit with a story I've been working on based on The Elder Scrolls:

Spoiler

• Originally, I had conceived an idea for a custom quest for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion entitled The Fury of Kr'ohr in which the player would assist my own player character, Willis ra Teremolve, and his family in tracking down and destroying a dangerous Orc battlemage named Kr'ohr gro-Lestim. This Kr'ohr was responsible for the deaths of both Willis' father and sister, as well as countless other unnamed innocents, for the purpose of harvesting their magic-rich souls to increase his own power. By the end of the quest, while the player was busy fighting him head-to-head, his followers would claim the life of Willis' ten-year-old daughter as well. Grief-stricken, Willis decides to leave Nirn and wipe his memories so he won't have to live with the pain.
• This gained a sequel idea in the form of an untitled machinima. It would have chronicled Willis' new life on Earth as his memories started to return to him in his dreams. When his curiosity gets the better of him, he sets out to find out what his dreams mean—and per his original instructions, his wife does everything in her power to stop him.
• This would have eventually led up to a series of one-off shorts showcasing a diverse selection of mods for Oblivion. This premise was then split off into a separate story, gaining the working title The Elder Scrolls: Mod Squad. This went through several iterations: originally, Willis was to travel to various modded locations with a party of characters culled from other mods. A subsequent revision saw Willis and his party replaced by a group of real-world video gamers who were able to digitize themselves into the game world. Included mods would have allowed for crossovers with franchises outside of The Elder Scrolls.
• The basic plot of the original Fury of Kr'ohr quest idea was finally merged into Mod Squad to become the live-action/machinima fusion The Elder Scrolls: Trial By Fiction, in which avid gamer Zack Ponce, disillusioned with real life, is transported into the game world to confront his own inner demons, chief among them Kr'ohr gro-Lestim, a villain he created himself based on someone he feels severely wronged him. Aiding him in his journey is his player character, Willis ra Teremolve, along with some NPCs designated as Willis' family, and a number of characters from other franchises. Unlike Mod Squad, which was designed as a series of shorts, Trial By Fiction is set to be presented as one or two feature-length films.

tl;dr I started with one idea, then progressed to a sequel which gave rise to a spin-off that turned into an unrelated story and then was finally integrated into the original idea, negating the sequel that spawned it. So, a rewrite that resulted from merging two unrelated stories....what do you call that, exactly?

 

[Karpi]

I'm a fan of starting completely over. But there was one point at which I realized I had been holding back quite a lot of information about one of my characters, and reading it made it seem like it was something I just invented out of nowhere for that chapter, so I went back and added foreshadowing. But if it's anything other than adding hints or changing something trivial, I would just start from nothing. Redoing the same opening chapters sometimes can give you a little inspiration, too, since you have to think about it anew.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

When I started my story the first time through, I was basically terrible at writing. The first few chapters are agonising for me to read now, and most of the rest is patchy at best. The end's noticeably better, though.

In my rewrite, I'm essentially writing the same story, though a lot of details are different and hopefully better, but writing it properly. I think this will become a habit of mine. In a first draft, you can afford to write sloppily, and your main objective is to just get the story down on paper. Then you can review it to see if anything needs changing, before rewriting it properly. And then editting a bit.

I avoid changing the plot too much in a rewrite, usually because if I didn't like the plot in the first place, I'd never have got the first draft written. Plus the characters don't really change much, and its characters who control the plot.

Long story short, I rewrite to sort out writing quality, above anything else. Plot issues can be fixed along the way.