Recycling, Revising, Rethinking Old Projects Into New Mediums

 I am writing this post at 11:42 pm after a day of attempting to produce a new short film. I am compelled to direct another film for a 72-hour challenge sponsored by an organization dedicated to inspiring beginning filmmakers, Cinematography for Actors, because they provide an opportunity to get out there and make films with other creatives.  It is an opportunity that is too delicious to pass up.  It requires 72 intense hours of your life and the reward is that you have completed a film.  The last film I made, Don't Assume is now being shown in the LA Film Festival on May 21, 2026 at 7:00pm.

To buy tickets if you're in LA

LOS ANGELES FILM FEST | May 13th-24th 2026 Tickets, Wednesday, May 13-Sunday, May 24 | Eventbrite

Although I was enchanted by filmmaking when I first arrived in Los Angeles in the mid 80's, I never fully pursued this "dream" in serious ways.  I worked on crews and dabbled, but made my way into education and other art forms instead.  This new interest is a much more realistic approach.  I love the format of the short film.  I am long past any "Hollywood Dreams" and am much more interested in telling a story in a different medium, in addition to as an author.

As the writer/director/producer, I find that the first step for me is to pair with a cinematographer, with whom I can collaborate. With this accomplishment, the potential script can begin its journey into the formation of a cinematic reality.  

As an author, the story reality begins with me.  The creative work done, is solitary.  Yes, there are critique partners along the way, my agent's expert adjustments, an editor's desire for the story, and the acquisition team’s decision to make the manuscript into a book.  But for the most part, the process is a relatively solo journey until the manuscript is ready to make its way into the publishing world.

A story on its way to the screen is a completely different process, with many collaborations along the way.

I began this particular endeavor with a creative partnership with the cinematographer, Evan Parquette. Together, we worked the script into shape.  It had many layers for a 7-minute film so there were many hours spent tweaking and twisting the words and directions on the page.

Once satisfied with the shape of the story, we set about finding other members of the crew.  We found a film editor who will take the footage we will shoot and arrange the sound and images into a cohesive story, paying close attention to tone and pacing. Using their artistry, they will tell the story by the arrangement they choose.

We have spent the past few days securing equipment necessary to record sound and image.  As these pieces came together, we were hopeful. But one cannot make a film without a location or actors.  This is where we stumbled.  It is easier said than done.

Writing a manuscript as an author isn’t easy but there are some key differences of the artform.  As an author, I must world-build.  I must use the words to create images of place, in the imagination of the reader.  I must create living, breathing characters with histories, objectives, desires, motivations, and relationships.  If I succeed, the characters come to life in the readers imaginations as well.  Taking up emotional space and navigating a journey through a story that the reader is willing to embark on.

Throughout the day, we thought we had secured the location.  We were on our way, and then we lost it and had to start from scratch.  By afternoon, we were unsuccessful in securing another location.

Meanwhile, we were scrambling to cast the two main actors.  Without actors, we are unable to bring the story to life.  By late afternoon we threw in the towel and pivoted.

As an author, I have complete control over the characters in my story.  In film, I must depend on other people to act out the parts on camera to tell the story.  I have no real control.  It is a feeling of helplessness and frustration.  A feeling that I am not accustomed to.  As an author, the story dictates my progress.  I am experiencing that in film; the logistics and other people dictate the progress.  Film is truly a collaborative medium. I love story crafting as an author.  I am learning to love story crafting as a filmmaker with many collaborators. 

The film story we were trying to tell was multi-dimensional, with many different complicated levels. We were beginning to worry that the elements necessary to tell such a sophisticated story with very little prep would result in a telling that was sophomoric and trite.  

Did I have a different story that we could film? Could I recycle an old story?  How much revision would be necessary?  Changing from a manuscript to film script would take some rethinking.

By late evening, I pulled out a scene from the novel that I have been working on about the twin sister of the school shooter. 

I know these characters backward and forward.  I know what's in their hearts.  I know their wounds.  I know how they love and hate.  Fortunately, it didn't take long to rework the scene into a 7 minute short film.  Thank goodness.  We were out of time.

By late night, we were back to looking for a location and searching for actors for a different story.

It is now 2:32 am.  Tomorrow will tell if the pieces to this puzzle come together.  So many pieces must align.  It’s so labor intensive as well as expensive.  If you have an explosion in the story, it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  As an author, it’s free.  It is all created in the reader’s mind.  Such different mediums, and yet, there is enchantment and excitement in both.  A journey to be taken.

By Zeena M. Pliska

Author of 

Hello, Little One: A Monarch Butterfly Story

Egyptian Lullaby

Chicken Soup for the Soul for Babies Say Thank You? (But Why?)

Chicken Soup for the Soul for Babies A Gift For Me? (I Want It!)

The "R" Word: Revision (with a Tie-In to our Current Giveaway)

One of the greatest challenges writing teachers face is helping students understand that a first draft is only the beginning of the writing process. As TeachingAuthors, we often talk about the  "R" word: Revision.  Two weeks ago, Mary Ann shared her memories of being a young writer who hated revision. (You can read her post here.) I meet many young writers (and some not-so-young ones) with a similar attitude. They feel that after struggling long and hard to complete that first draft, they're done. That's it! Convincing these writers to revisit and revise can be next to impossible. Today I'll share three points I emphasize with such students to help them appreciate the value of revision. I hope these ideas will help you and/or your students embrace revision:

1. Revising a story doesn't mean it isn't a good story, only that it can be better.

In Seeing the Blue Between: Advice and Inspiration for Young Poets, compiled by Paul B. Janeczko, award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes:

"If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.'

Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!"

To emphasize this point, I tell young writers about the process I went through to write and eventually publish my novel, Rosa, Sola. I wrote the novel as my creative thesis while pursuing an MFA in Writing at Vermont College. The first draft took me three semesters to complete. By the end of my third-semester, my adviser was pleased with the manuscript. She was even willing to sign-off on it as my thesis, but she suggested I hold off and have my fourth-semester adviser critique it first. Or, as I tell young students, she was ready to give me a "B+," but she knew my next teacher could help me make it an "A."

My fourth-semester adviser did provide wonderful feedback, especially regarding some weaknesses in the plot. However, one of her suggestions was rather daunting: she wanted me to rewrite the entire 125-page novel from third-person point of view to first-person. I resisted the idea, in part because I liked it in third-person, and in part because of all the work such a change would require. In the end, though, I gave in and did the rewrite. At the same time, I revised the plot issues. When I was done, my adviser loved the first-person voice of the new draft. She signed-off on that version as my official thesis.

This is a picture of my thesis draft, which I show students when I talk about revision.

There was only one problem--I still preferred the voice in the earlier, third-person draft. The first-person narration didn't ring quite true to me; it felt too mature and thoughtful to come from an average ten-year-old struggling with complex emotions. After graduation, I decided to go back to third-person viewpoint before trying to sell the manuscript. Of course, since I'd changed the story's plot in between, I couldn't just go back to the earlier draft (which I had saved on my computer). I had to do another FULL rewrite. Knowing how much work that would take, I procrastinated for a long time. However, I eventually bit the bullet and did the rewrite. To my surprise, the revised third-person draft was MUCH better than my earlier third-person version, and it wasn't just because of the plot changes. The process of rewriting the story in first person had given me a better understanding of my main character, and that new understanding now made the third-person version  much richer .

This is the third-person draft that was accepted by Candlewick Press.

My revision story doesn't end here, though, which leads to my second point:

2. Published authors typically revise again (and again and again), even after they've sold their work.
In January 2003, I received a call from an editor at Candlewick Press who wanted to buy Rosa, Sola. I was ecstatic!  She mentioned on the phone that she had some revision suggestions she'd be sending me. Fortunately, I knew enough about publishing to know this was common. However, most of my students (even the adult ones) are surprised when I tell them this. I point out to them that the editor obviously thought I'd written a good novel or she wouldn't have wanted to buy it in the first place. Or, as Naomi Shihab Nye would say, the editor didn't think my novel was a broken-down car wreck; she simply wanted to help me make it shine.

First, the editor sent me a single-spaced, three-page letter filled with questions and suggestions for improving Rosa, Sola. It took me several months to work through those changes and send her a new manuscript. She then read through the story again and marked the pages she still had questions or comments on with yellow sticky notes. When I show that version of the manuscript to students, they usually gasp:   

Unfortunately, this photo only shows the sticky notes on the LEFT side of the pages. There are as many, if not more, on the right side.

I fixed those issues, sent the new draft back, and my editor replied with more yellow notes, though not quite as many this time:

Again, students are usually shocked to see all the pages that still need revision. However, by this time, the students usually begin to see my point--a first draft is only the beginning of the writing process, especially if you want to create something that really shines.

If you or your students aren't convinced such last minute changes are common, then I encourage you to read our Guest Teaching Author Sarah Campbell's blog post about revising her latest book, Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature. And don't forget to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of the book here.

Finally, the third point I remind students of to help them appreciate the value of revision:

3. We are constantly growing as writers.
The more we read and write, the more we grow as writers. While this may seem obvious, at least to adults, we often forget it. And for young writers who are learning and maturing at a tremendous rate, the passage of a month or more can make a tremendous difference in their writing skills. The following Writing Workout is a way to help you take advantage of that growth, whether you're a writer or a teacher.

Writing Workout:
Revision=Re-seeing

After submitting a draft of Rosa, Sola to my editor, I sometimes had to wait months for her feedback. While that long wait was often frustrating, it did have some benefits: by the time I looked at the manuscript again, I could read it more objectively. It was almost as though someone else had written it. The "cooling off" period, combined with my ongoing growth as a writer (mentioned in #3 above) made it easier to see how I could improve the story.

You can create a similar effect. After you or your students have completed what you believe is a polished draft of a piece of writing, try the following:

1. If the work is on a computer, print it out in a font you don't typically use. For example, if you usually print in Times New Roman, try an Arial or Verdana font, and maybe change the font size to slightly smaller or larger, too. If you're working with students who have written something by hand, have them type up and print out their work. (Addendum 3/15/10: I recently came across a blog post by Sharon Creech where she discusses using different colored paper for different drafts. I may try that some time. See her post here.)
2. Put the work aside for awhile, preferably, at least a month.  No matter how tempted you are, do NOT look at the manuscript at all during this time.
3. While the work is "cooling," keep reading and writing. Read the kinds of things you like to write and/or books about the craft of writing. At the same time, start a new writing project, brainstorm future writing topics, or write daily in a journal, even if for only a minute. (See April's post about this.) This step is VERY important--you want to continue your growth as writer while your story cools.
4. At the end of the month, pull out your "cooled" draft. When you read it, pretend it was written by someone else. What do you like about the piece? What don't you like about it? What would make it better?

Happy writing (and revising)!
Carmela

Never Right the First Time or How I Learned to Love Revision

   As long as I can remember, I have loved writing. I turned those "make a sentence with your spelling words" assignments into short stories. My science reports read like episodes of Wild Kingdom ("brought to you by Mutual of Omaha".) Book reports allowed me to pick apart the language and logic of adults who write for children. If it involved putting words on paper in some creative fashion, I was in the Zone (a phenomena I understood long before it had a name.)
    What didn't I love about writing?
     Revision.
   "Revision" meant everything was spelled and punctuated correctly, the nouns and verbs agreeing. All sentences must be complete; no fragments or run-ons allowed.
     I was a lousy speller, in those pre-Spellcheck days.  Teachers liked papers with tidy margins, perfect Palmer Method cursive, and no erasures.  My papers looked like grey Swiss cheese with streaks of not-quite-erased words, and holes where I'd erased a little too hard. I wrote assignments over and over to achieve the required neatness.  No matter how good my writing, it was never neat or legible enough to win the attention I thought I deserved.
     Thanks to my early teachers, I learned to confuse revision with "following the rules"(grammar, spelling, neatness). Because I liked making good grades, I eventually forced myself to check every other word in the dictionary and slavishly follow the punctuation sections of my grammar book.
     There is absolutely nothing wrong with grammatically correct, well-spelled writing.  But in my case, "learning the rules" came at the expense of creative re-thinking. Not once did anyone mention "revision" as a way to make your writing better.
     There are kids who don't mind doing things over and over, and there are kids who would rather eat flies than do something a second time. The former kids are the ones who become Olympians, win the National Spelling Bee, solo with the New York Philharmonic at age seven.
     I was not one of those kids. Since I had mastered the art of being "a teacher pleaser" (ie, spelled right and neatly written), I saw absolutely no reason to re-write anything to make it better.  It was already
"better";  the teacher could read it and I got an A. Good, right?
     I continued my policy of Get it Right the First Time into high school. I won several state and national writing contests by never revising. I was under the impression that "good" writers always got it right the first time. If I got stuck after the first two paragraphs (which was happening with alarming frequency), I would tear up the story. If I couldn't write that third paragraph, the idea was no good, right?
     Then I met the Famous Southern Writer. (Because memories have a way of revising themselves, I cannot swear that this is absolutely the way things happened, so no names will be mentioned.)
     One of my writing contest prizes was lunch with Famous Southern Writer. I was fifteen and had absolutely no idea how gifted and famous this writer was. I was much more interested in the prize money that the Writer was to present me at the luncheon.
    The Writer liked to talk. A lot. Mostly about how hard writing was. "I write two pages and tear three up.  I write the same page over and over."
     I didn't think the Writer was making much of a case for writing as a career, to say nothing of being a monotonous lunch partner. So when the Writer took a break to actually eat, I chirped up and said, "Wow. You really re-write stuff a lot. I never write anything more than once."
     I might have said more, but was stopped by a withering look from the Writer.
     "Is that so?" drawled the Writer.  "Only once?"
      I nodded modestly, trying not blush.
      "Well my dear, when you learn to re-write and re-write and when nothing ever looks right to you...then you'll be a  real writer."
      You would think such direct and honest advice would've been my big "Ah-ha!" moment.
      It wasn't.  I was fifteen.  Fifteen-year-olds are very wise.  Just ask them.

      Not until I was in the MFA program at Vermont College that I learned what true revision is. How to take apart a story and put it back together, using any number of techniques.  Only then did I truly appreciate that a story is never right the first time. I learned to embrace the opportunity to get it right the third time...or fourth time....of the 560th time!
     As William Zinsser said in his book On Writing Well: "Rewriting is the essence of writing well; it is where the game is won or lost.  That idea is hard to accept.  We all have emotional equity in our first draft;  we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 per cent that it wasn't."

 Writing Workout
These are some of the things I do when a story isn't working. I can become so focused on what doesn't work, I can't think of constructive ways to "fix" it. For me, the trick is to distance myself from my work by using some of these ideas. Removing the "emotional equity" helps me to be more objective (always a problem for me.)

Re-write changing one basic element. It it's in first person, change it to third. Or change the narrator to a different character. Switch the tenses; if it's in present tense, try it in past, or vice versa.

Sometimes I write what I think is a picture book, and discover it is really a novel. I just finished a book that I thought was a chapter book, but turned out to be a picture book. You can't force a story into a format that doesn't work any more than you can cram your size 8 foot into size 6 shoes (even if they are really cute and on sale.)

Sometimes when I am having trouble with voice, I re-write a section, consciously copying the style of another writer. I have used J.D. Salinger (R.I.P. to the father of Holden Caulfield), Charlotte Bronte, Hemingway, Faulkner, Dorothy Parker....and Beverly Cleary. Writing in someone else's style somehow helps you discover your own.

Share with us your own ways of handling revision.

BTW, it's not too late to enter our latest Teaching Authors contest. Read JoAnn's last post for details
http://www.teachingauthors.com/2010/02/book-giveaway-and-guest-teaching-author.html 

                     Mary Ann Rodman