Have you gotten stuck in a rewrite rut? We certainly have! A rewrite rut is when you keep rewriting and polishing instead of moving on and getting the rest of your first draft written. Last month’s East Bay Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Craft Klatsch’s topic was “How do you know when to stop editing?” The discussion got us thinking; there just might be a good reason you’re in a rut.

The standard advice on getting out of a rewrite rut is all about wrangling your perfectionism demons. And it’s not wrong—learning to ignore your inner critic and give yourself permission to just get the bare bones down and make it pretty later is hard.

We found that choosing a low-pressure writing project to practice helped. For us low-pressure meant writing a short story for a friend’s eyes only about a vampire and a hellhound’s perfect date. Keeping the mood campy and darkly humorous helped us not take ourselves too seriously. Knowing only our friend would read it helped us feel safe making mistakes.

But sometimes your inner critic is trying to tell you something really important.

We realized one reason we’d gotten stuck in a rewrite rut was that there were some fundamental flaws in our first chapters that needed addressing before we moved on, and it took us several rewrites to figure out what they were. To wit, we needed to change the setting from San Francisco to New York, rewrite one chapter from a different character’s point of view so it made more sense, and turn Mama Cleo’s pack of six werewolves into three. All of these would’ve meant major—like throw it all out and start over major—revisions if we’d kept going. Thankfully, we could feel something was amiss. The rewrite rut helped us identify the problems so we could safely move forward.

We also got stuck because we weren’t mentally ready to write some of the scenes we knew were coming up. We plan to write more about this in another post, but it’s okay to stop and put your mental health first. Writing is emotionally taxing. Maybe you’re not ready to go where the story will take you yet.

So if you’re in a rewrite rut, try asking yourself these questions:

• Is perfectionism the primary problem? If so, what sort of project would make it feel safe to practice just keeping writing?
• Is there a fundamental flaw here I’m trying to figure out? Has my inner critic spotted a problem I really do need to fix before writing more?
• Am I reluctant to write a difficult scene because I’m not ready? Do I need to take a mental health break from this project?

Sometimes a rewrite rut is productive! The trick, as always, is telling the difference. 😊