Blog: Writing Is Re-Writing

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On of the BIG things they have been teaching us at RITING SKOOL is the following "Writing Is Re-Writing" i.e. it's all well and good sitting down and writing a THING but then you have to go back and re-do it and re-do it and re-do it and then, just when you think it's PERFECT, re-do it AGANE. And then about A HUNDRED OTHER TIMES.

It seems totally obvious, and it's something I'm doing a LOT with the current show, but blimey I wish I'd thought more about this with the OTHERS, especially Dinosaur Planet. When we did it at Green Man last year I was amazed by how many LONGEURS there were, huge chunks without SONGS or LARFS where I'd think "just a couple of minutes, then it gets good again." When I sat down to work up Moon Horse my PRIME DIRECTIVE was to ERADICATE those, but then THAT show all got a bit COMPLICATED, with the dashing backwards and forwards in time/space. I think part of the FUN of that show WAS how complicated it was, but I've been trying very hard this time to make sure Total Hero Team is BOTH fast-paced AND comprehensible.

I thought we'd pretty much SORTED it with the TENTH draft, which is the version we've done at the two shows so far, but some audience feedback from Sunday (most notably from the estimable Mr Dave Green) showed that the start STILL isn't quite right. I think me and Steve were both aware of this anyway - once we got through the first ten pages we suddenly got a LOT more confident, and everything RATTLED along - but the fact that someone else SAID it forced me to consider it more seriously, and so today I have done ANOTHER re-write, moving us onto version ELEVEN!

I haven't heard back from Steve yet, but I'm sure he'll be DELIGHTED! I know I am - the thing about re-writing is that it turns out to be EXCELLENT fun! Trying to work this show out took me AGES, and it changed direction 100,000,000,000 times so that pretty much the ONLY things that stayed from the first version were Fufu The Future Kitten and the CAMEO by A Noted Politician. There's a whole PILE of characters and songs that got dropped and... well, not that many, but SOME jokes too. But it's been LOVELY - once the thing is DONE you can say "ooh, what if I move THIS bit over there?" or get all excited about CHOPPING bits that are BORING, thus making it all MORE EXCITING.

I'm also starting to see that maybe when Steve says "I don't like this bit" I should take more heed, for LO! a lot of today's re-write has involved going through and taking those bits OUT. Removing (MOST OF) the lines he's been complaining about has, over time, done NO END of improvement!

The only downside of all this FUN is that we have to flipping LEARN it! Still, we've got a practice this week before we hit Croydon on the 29th, and then ANOTHER before the first BIG shows at the Leicester Comedy Festival (8th and 9th February at The Criterion - tickets still VERY available!), so we should be fine.

And then I can re-write it all AGANE!

posted 22/1/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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