I broke one of my own writing rules this morning, which is never copy and paste from an older manuscript. I was trying to get at the heart of a pivotal scene in the current draft of Last Thursday, my current novel-in-progress, and some of the words I was tapping seemed mighty familiar. On rereading the first version of the scene, I found a lot about it that still felt relevant, prompting me to drop a pile of words into my latest take. Then I read the previous chapter as a segue into the new one—and remembered why I don’t do that.

I’ve known this was a set piece for a while. In fact, the scene (and its consequences) form the complication that propels the story into act II. Having pasted in the previous take, I noted that while the characters’ actions were approximately right, the tone was all wrong. Doggedly determined to make the existing words work, I started to bend and twist them, inserting one here, deleting there… yuck.

Riffing on the scene proved the most valuable technique for escaping the quagmire I’d created. It started as a free-write on what I was trying to accomplish; thoughts on motivation, subtext, the personal dynamic between the two characters involved. I didn’t worry one whit about prose, just dashed off ideas. After a few pages of this, themes emerged that I hadn’t considered before, motives deepened and expanded. I even got a great little visual metaphor as a cherry on top. Best of all, I got renewed excitement about making the scene work.

Going back into it armed with fresh knowledge, I was surprised to find that many of the passages from the original version worked almost verbatim, while others were entirely replaced. It’ll take a bit more polish, but the parts are finally moving as a unit now, which puts a smile on my face. I fear it might be one of my last opportunities to harness the original manuscript, because the story is taking turns I never anticipated back then. For now, I’ll happily take any pages I can get as long as they’re still useful. Most curious to me is how the original manuscript held up, even atop a shifting storyline. There must be some part of me that knew where I was going all along. I sure wish that part would speak up more often.