#rewritingchallenge

[arielle0808]

Re-writing challenge!

Good day/night to everyone! It's been some time since I first saw that some artists uploaded on their social media their re-doing of drawings they had made some years ago to show their improvement, and I thought that is such a cool thing to do!

Unfortunately, I am no artist, but I thought that doing it with my old pieces of writing could be nice as well :3

Thus, I decided to start a re-writing challenge, in which I will upload  fragments of old pieces of writing  every two weeks (original and fanfiction), point out the elements that I think are improvable, and a re-writing of the fragment ^^ I don't know if someone has done this before, but I think it's really positive and helpful!

So if you are a writer and you agree, I encourage you to do the same thing! If you tag me on your post and use the tag #rewritingchallenge, I will comment and/or reblog it!

I will start with not-so-old pieces and start digging up the oldest ones. Some of these will be in Spanish since that’s my native language, but I’ll try to find some of my old stuff in English (which is going to be quite embarrassing).

For today, I’ve chosen a fragment from my first fic ever, Our Story, which you can find on AO3. According to our friend Word, I started writing this story in November 2016. Let’s see what we do with it~

<<It was dawning when Saeyoung opened his eyes. The dim light entered the windows and he discovered he had fallen asleep on the sofa again. He tried to sit down, his back hurting a lot because he hasn’t been sleeping in his bed for days. It was difficult for him to sleep. Nothing bad happened really but he just couldn’t help thinking that he should find a job sooner than later. His life felt unstable now. He couldn’t say he wasn’t happy though. He had found his brother, who was finally starting to get alone with the rest of the members of RFA, and even though he wasn’t working at the moment, he had earned enough money to live quite well for the next year. The RFA was pretty active again. They had held a party after Saeran joined and Rika was sent to travel with a strange group Zen had somehow found, and they were already organising another. But still, things worried him. He was worried that the agency would inquire after him and Mary Vanderwood and find them, somehow, which would not only put at risk their lives, but also the ones of the members of RFA, especially his brother’s. And there was also the job thing. He knew he could ask Jumin and find a job in his company quite easily, but he didn’t want to put him in danger. Besides, what could he do? He felt he was only good at hacking and it wasn’t as if there were much legal jobs in that field. He felt frustrated. If he continued like that he wouldn’t be able to take care of his brother much longer, and he was not going to lose him again. Never again.

He logged into the chat room, and saw MC connected.

[…]

It was always fun talking to MC. He felt she was the only one who understood his jokes and jokes were precisely what kept him sane. He felt he could switch into the 707 persona and pretend he actually didn’t care about anything. He liked to pretend he was careless and mess around, especially with Yoosung. Yoosung was just too funny. He couldn’t help smiling every time he saw him in the chat room and trying to mess with him, which was quite easy because he was just too innocent. He knew it wasn’t fair to use him to forget his worries, but it was just too tempting. Sometimes Saeyoung felt he could only laugh sincerely when he talked to him, and that was how their relationship worked, right? He was no more than that teasing friend who was really annoying. He was okay with that. He just needed that little bit of Yoosung to feel some moments of happiness. And he didn’t deserve more than some moments of happiness.

He started chatting about some silly things with MC when Yoosung logged in.>>

So, this is the fragment I’ve chosen to work with. It comprises the first few paragraph of the first chapter, minus the conversation in the chatroom.

As you see, I’ve highlighted in different ways several things that can be improved. The typos and weird word choices are highlighted in bold, the repetitions (which don’t have any literary function) are scratched, and the weird sentence structures or grammatical mistakes, in italics.

There isn’t much to say about that, except that my use of English has improved lol (though there’s still room for improvement).

Apart from that, I don’t think this is an excessively bad introductory paragraph? It presents the RFA’s situation from Saeyoung’s perspective well enough, as well as what he believes to be his unrequited love, so there’s not much to change. The situation is a bit cliché, that’s true, but if I changed that I would be writing a whole different story, so I won’t get into that.

What I will modify, though, is the use of interior monologue since I love that device and I don’t use it much in the original version.

So this would be the final result!!

<<It was dawning when Saeyoung opened his eyes. The dim light of dawn entered the room through the windows and he realised he had fallen asleep on the sofa again. He tried to sit up, the intense pain on his back making him wonder when was the last time he had slept in a proper bed. Falling asleep had always been difficult to him. It should have become easier, though, since he had finally found his brother, who was starting to get along with the rest of the RFA members, and he had earned enough money to live quite well for the next year after working for the agency. The RFA was pretty active again, which was good as well. They had held a party after Saeran joined and Rika was sent to travel with a group Zen had found and was supposed to help her, and they were already organising another. Thus, his anxiety shouldn’t be acting as much as it was.

Despite all this, his life felt unstable. He was worried that the agency would inquire after him and Vanderwood and find them, which would not only put their lives at risk, but also those of the RFA members, especially his brother’s. He also believed he should find a job sooner than later. He knew he could ask Jumin, who would probably hire him in his company without thinking it twice, but he didn’t want to put him in danger. Besides, what could he do? He felt he was only good at hacking and there weren’t many legal jobs in that field. He felt frustrated. If he continued that way, he wouldn’t be able to take care of his brother, and he was not going to lose him again. Never, ever again.

He logged into the chat room, and saw MC online.

[…]

He smirked. Talking to MC was always fun. She was clever enough to understand his elevated sense of humour and, honestly, at that point jokes were the only thing what kept him… somehow sane. Jokes allowed him to switch into his 707 persona and that way he could feign he didn’t actually care about anything. If he pretended well enough he could make himself believe it, too. This was always the case whenever Yoosung was around. God, messing with him was so fun. He could feel a smile on his face already just thinking about pulling a prank on his innocent Yoosungie. Deep inside, he knew it wasn’t fair to use him to forget about his worries, but it was so tempting! Sometimes Saeyoung felt he could only laugh sincerely when he talked to him. Besides, if it wasn’t for their usual interactions, how would their relationship be? He was no more than that annoying tease of a friend. If he didn’t play around with him, he would be nothing to Yoosung. He was okay with that. It was all he needed to feel some moments of happiness. And he didn’t deserve more than that.

He was playing around with MC in the chat room, when Yoosung logged in.>>

So, as you can see, I decided to change the order of the elements of the first paragraph (and divide it in two, since it was so long). In the first version, I pointed out Saeyoung’s worries, how his life was going on better than before and talked about his anxieties again, so I think the new arrangement makes the ideas of the text more organised now.

The sentences in italics are some examples of interior monologue!

So, that was it! I really hope you liked it ^^

Did you agree with the changes? Would you modify something else? Did you like the first version better? You don’t like either? Love both?? Would you like me to clarify something? Want me to use a longer/shorter fragment the next time?? Feel free to let me know!!

Thanks for reading! <3

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#rewritingchallenge #rewriting fanfiction #rewriting challenge #rewriting our story #our story #i hope you find this fun! #or interesting! #or both

[arielle0808]

Re-writing Challenge! 2

Hello and welcome to the second #rewritingchallenge post!!

For today, I’ve chosen a piece, dated 14th of September 2016, which is actually a translation from a longer story I finished writing that or the previous summer (if I’m not mistaken). The piece can stand on its own, it was actually one I read aloud in one of the first meetings of the Creative Writing Society in my uni <3, so I thought it could be interesting revising it :3

It’s called The Blue Hill.

Here it comes~

<< I took her to the hill where the blue flowers grow. Blue flowers with the shape of a star. She didn’t ask me any questions on the way, just followed me with an inexpressive look, as she always does.

When there is full moon and luck, a seed of these blue flowers may fall on the ground. Then, it will grow in just one night and stay forever.

They are only found in this hill and nobody takes them or plant them or stare or name them because they belong to the hill and are free. Nevertheless, I like them, for they remind me of Diana, for they grow up alone and blue. So I named them “Diana”.

So I took her there and I got a seed from one flower. They can be found in the middle of the star and have the shape of a drop of water.

We reached the top of the hill and I planted the seed. When the clouds uncovered the full moon a shoot emerged from the floor with a blue spot.

-It will bloom at dawn.

She just nodded.

-I named it Diana because they are just like you.

She stared at me.

-Which flower is like you?- she asked.

-I don’t know.

-Find one with your name.

And I thought: “Yes, I can do that”.>>

Wow, this is going to be a long ride.

I consider that one of the problems of this piece is that, as I mentioned before, this was originally written in Spanish. So, the original is even older and young me in 2016 didn’t have as much knowledge in translation as I do now, after having taken several courses in translation (because no, translation is not only about knowing the language. But that’s another story.)

Thus, some parts of this piece feel like a Spanish text which uses English words, if that makes sense. For example “when there is full moon and luck,” sounds a bit too artificial or foreign. Then again, I’m not a native English speaker, so maybe another person could tell better.

The narrative flows relatively well until the dialogue. I feel that the sentences are too short and the format is far from the desirable one.

And, lastly, the grammatical and orthographical mistakes (my worst nightmare!) T^T

Otherwise, the text is not that bad. I was starting to get a hold of repetitions and, as I mentioned before, the first paragraph actually flows quite well. It can be improved, but, well, that’s what we are doing! Also, the characters in the text are children or early teens, which, I think, can be inferred by the innocent and pure tone of the narrative I believe I managed. I think young Alice got to give a voice to the characters and that’s a good thing. Also, I like the ending lol

Here goes the new version:

<< I took her to the hill where the blue flowers grow. Blue flowers with the shape of a star. She didn’t ask me any questions on the way, just followed me with an inexpressive look, as she always does.

When the moon is full, if a seed of these flowers falls on the ground, it grows up in one night and stays there forever. They are only found on that cliff, and no one takes them, or plants them, or names them, but I like them because they remind me of Diana, for they grow up solitary and blue. So I named them “diana.”

That night, I took her to the cliff and I picked a seed from one flower. They can be found in the middle of the star and have the shape of a drop of water. We reached the top of the hill and I planted it. When the clouds uncovered the full moon, a shoot emerged from the ground with a blue spot. When the moonlight bathed it, it started to grow.

“It will bloom at dawn,” I said and she nodded. “I named them Diana because they are just like you.” She stared at me.

“Which flower is like you?” she asked me.

“I don’t know”

“Find the one which has your name”

And I thought: “Yes, I can do that.”.>>

So, here is the new version! I decided to make a small re-arrangement of the paragraphs and the dialogue, fixed the orthographical and grammatical mistakes and added more descriptions, or at least refined them a little. I changed the dashes for inverted commas because I like them best now, but there’s no other reason lol

I also decided to change the capital “D” in “I named them “Diana”” for a “d” since we could say the name becomes a common name when it’s use for the flowers (same way as you would call a flower a “rose” but a person, “Rose”).

And, that’s pretty much it.

I also remember that when I first wrote this I wasn’t sure whether to write the last sentence as it is now or as “And I thought I could do that.” Now that I think of it again, I’m not really sure which I like best. I decided to stick to the version I chose back in 2016 because it has the double affirmation (“yes” and “I can do that”) and I think that gives it strength, but maybe shortening it would make it have a greater impact. What do you think?

I hope you enjoyed this month’s challenge! Do you have any questions? Anything you would change, you would have left as it was before? Do you want to read the original, Spanish version? Just leave an ask or comment it in the post ^3^

Thank you for reading!

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#rewritingchallenge #rewriting challenge #rewriting week 2 #original writing #rewriting the blue hill