He Rewrites the Rewrites

In The Flow of Time – June 13, 2026

And here I thought I was done. 🙂 HA! Darn my accomplished writer friends. The critique group is going through the final chapters of Laveaux: Dancer. In almost all cases, the suggestions are tweaks, writerly ideas from skillful colleagues. Not this time.

This chapter (Sometimes It’s Hairy) has a reveal, the AHA! moment when the truth appears. It didn’t work. It’s not a passing comment, it’s spot-on focused feedback from Dara. “The way you’ve drawn Smith, he would NEVER give such information to an associate.” And with that one remark, the entire premise behind a critical chapter falls to the editing room floor.

I need this truth. So I rewrote the whole thing, added a new character, OK, not happy but this is cool, it works, I’m done (again). Except…

PING! Iolo sends me a suggestion. “What if…”  The idea is, a box Santiago made appears in the room. And I think, he lied to Marie about the box. 

It is WAY better than what I did, either initially or in the rewrite. It is subtle. It does not require a formal “reveal.” It presents an accidental circumstance from which Marie KNOWS her husband is lying. She has no idea what he’s hiding. There is a non-zero chance he has betrayed her, utterly and completely. But she doesn’t KNOW that for a fact. 

All from the impossible presence of his handiwork in the room. This approach feeds into the next chapter, where she tries to ascertain the truth with certainty—ironically, by lying to him.

So I rewrote the rewrite. Actually spent a few days on this, for a chapter in a book that is DONE. Except, when you encounter better, well damn you make it better. Especially when the chapter contains the central event that leads to the final resolution of the narrative.

Really good signs. The rewrite requires no change in the next chapter, just makes it far more plausible in the narrative. In the rewrite, all sorts of extraneous background about politics and a revolution in Haiti goes away. The focus is entirely on what a rich white mother and daughter would talk about while the hairdresser works on their coiffures. The scene becomes organic, not “the author is telling me shit.”