Beyond the First Draft: Mastering the Art of the Rewrite
Nov 05, 2025 3:29 pm
Good morning, ,
Every month, I come together with members of my Writing Practice community for a deep work session. We use this time to rewrite the article we wrote in the writing workshop held the previous week and prepare that article for the peer editing session the following week.
A few months ago, I started our deep work session by saying, "Writing is rewriting."
But what does that mean? That's the question I dive into today.
Read on!
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Beyond the First Draft: Mastering the Art of the Rewrite
“Writing is rewriting.”
I’ve read that phrase in just about every book on writing. I’ve heard that wisdom at just about every writing workshop. I’ve even said it in my Writing Practice community.
But what does it actually mean?
Think back to how you were taught to write in school. If your experience was anything like mine, it may have felt like you just sat down at your desk and, well, wrote. Maybe you did an outline, but it probably felt like a bit of a make-work project — something you did to check the box and get the grade.
I was a young freelance writer when a mentor taught me that writing is a process with four distinct stages: thinking, writing, rewriting, and editing. And that if I could break the habit of editing as I wrote, my writing would not only improve, but I could turn assignments around faster, and I would enjoy it a lot more. To break that habit, I needed to understand the differences between each stage of the writing process.
The thinking stage is when you research your idea. It’s when you conduct interviews, review work from others in your field, identify the angle, and plan your article. In my writing workshops, we start with thinking. Participants complete a SOAR analysis, write a working title, and draft a simple outline. The SOAR analysis makes the point of your article clear. The working title reminds you of that point and keeps you from getting caught up in trying to craft the perfect title before you’ve written the article. The outline provides a container that helps make writing your article easier.
Once your SOAR analysis is completed and you have a working title and outline, it’s time to start writing. The writing stage takes the least amount of time. Its entire purpose is to get your ideas out of your head and onto the page. In my writing workshops, participants have 20 minutes to write a shitty first draft, relying on nothing other than their SOAR analysis, outline, and expertise.
If you can’t remember an important research study, quote, or illustrative example while you’re writing, simply make a note to yourself in brackets and keep going. To write a shitty first draft quickly, which allows you to enter a flow state, you cannot allow the details to derail your writing. One significant benefit of adopting this approach is that 20 minutes of effort will let you know where you need to think about your topic more deeply.
And that’s the point of the rewriting stage. Rewriting is when you fill in the details and add nuance and depth to your article. This is the stage of the process that often takes the most time. Once you’ve captured everything you want to share with your reader, turn your attention to editing your article.
While editing your article, you may discover that you need to revisit the rewriting stage. Though it’s rarely discussed, revising the rewriting stage is a completely normal part of the writing process. This, I suspect, is why the phrase “writing is rewriting” is so prevalent. Rewriting is where you do the heavy lifting of writing. But rewriting doesn’t have to be a slog. With the right approach, it can even be enjoyable. (Indeed, it’s my favorite part of the writing process.) Here’s how I approach the rewriting stage:
Finish writing your shitty first draft first.
You can’t rewrite what hasn’t been written yet.
Before you start the rewriting process, you have to finish writing the shitty first draft. If you wrote the first draft under a time constraint, a practice I highly recommend, you may have written part of it as bullet points, or you may have run out of time and never quite finished the piece.
Write that which hasn’t been written first.
It sounds simple, but it can be very difficult to read what you’ve already written without revising it. But if you start to revise the piece before you’ve finished the shitty first draft, you’ll end up making a lot more work for yourself, and you’ll slow the process down.
I give myself 10 minutes to finish writing the shitty first draft. Without that time limit, it’s too easy for me to stay in the writing process much longer than I should and to start combining the writing stage with the rewriting and editing stage, perfecting each line as I make my way through the article.
Start rewriting by filling in the blanks.
Once your shitty first draft is done, review the entire thing looking for gaps in your thinking, notes you wrote to yourself, and areas where you need to add a bit more context, do a bit more research, or share an illustrative example.
A part of the rewriting process is filling in those gaps. Review your research and any notes you made during the thinking phase and incorporate those into your article. If your shitty first draft introduced ideas you hadn’t thought about before you started writing, now is the time to research those ideas.
As you fill in the gaps, your piece will start to take shape. That’s when you invite your audience into the rewriting process.
Keep your audience in mind.
A good article answers one (and only one) question. Structure your article in such a way that the central question — and your answer to that question — are clear to the reader.
Writing is like a puzzle that can be put together in several ways. The best way is the way that best conveys your idea and perspective to your reader.
At this stage, you may want to print out your article. Printing the article allows you to see the whole piece at once, which makes it easier to see where it might need to be reorganized. In some cases, it might be helpful to grab a pair of scissors and cut up the article so you can figure out the best way to put it back together.
The change in format from the screen to the page offers other benefits as well. That change in format allows you to read the piece from the perspective of your intended audience. And that shift in perspective helps you see where your thinking is muddy and where you might be confusing the reader.
As you focus on the organization and structure of your article, you may realize a few pieces are missing or that some of the existing pieces don’t belong. Revisit your SOAR analysis. Is the objective of the article you wrote the same as the article you planned to write? If not, does that shift make the article stronger? Did it muddy the waters? Or is it just a different article than you expected? Take the time to align your SOAR analysis with your article, either by modifying your SOAR analysis or by modifying your article.
Once you’ve added in any missing pieces and removed any pieces that don’t belong, read the article aloud while keeping your audience in mind. Once you’re finished adding new ideas to your writing, you’re ready to move on to the editing phase.
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To effectively convey your message to your reader, your writing must be cogent, well-researched, and compelling. And because written material can be read repeatedly and analyzed closely, it must be strong enough to withstand scrutiny.
Writing doesn’t allow you to rely on context, shared knowledge, or body language. The only tool you have available is the written word, and the written word leaves no room for ambiguity.
Rewriting takes time and thought and effort. It requires you to think deeply about your area of expertise and to find ways to convey your ideas clearly and succinctly. It helps you refine your ideas and improve your communication skills.
And that makes you a better consultant.
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Interested in learning how to build your authority by writing for your blog or a high-visibility publication? Join me on Wednesday, November 12, at 11:55 AM Eastern, for a mini-training on how to use your published articles to achieve your business goals, followed by a Q+A. I host this free, public event every month. Register here.
Master Class: How to Write for High-Visibility Publications
In this free 60-minute master class, I will share the SILVA Method™ and walk you step-by-step through the process I use to help my clients secure bylines in publications like Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and TD Magazine. Join me for the next master class on Wednesday, December 10, at 2 PM Eastern. Register here.
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AI Disclosure Statement: I used LanguageTool, a grammar checker, to review this email. In the future, I will use Claude to help me repurpose the article into video scripts, carousels, and text-based posts for LinkedIn. To learn more about how (and when) I use AI, review my AI Usage Policy.
