I started writing Meanwhile, Back at the Castle after I saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat the first time. That was almost 30 years ago (I am so dating myself). I wanted to write a sung-through musical based on a story that was familiar to most people. What show is more familiar than Cinderella? Not many.
So, I started writing a sung-through musical about Cinderella. And it was horrible. I still have that first draft, and it makes me laugh, and cringe. Going through rewrites, I realized that I really enjoy writing dialogue. I threw out the idea of making it sung-through, and as I started writing scenes with dialogue, I began to like what I had. I wrote songs, and I threw songs out. I created characters, and I threw characters out. I wrote scenes and I took scenes out. I even changed the title a few times.
The show that exists now has pretty much no resemblance to that first draft. Thank heavens! However, there is one song that remains from that draft. It is one of my favorite songs, and is an audience favorite. I could never take it out of the show now, no matter how many more small rewrites it goes through.
A great show is not written, it's rewritten. No first draft is perfect. (The same is true for novels.) One of the hardest things is knowing what to keep and what to change. It's important to find someone whose opinion you trust to read your script and give you feedback. You don't have to take all of their suggestions, but it's good to have fresh eyes look at it for you. It's also a good idea to put the script away for a period of time (I would say for at least a month), and when you come back to it you can look at it with fresher eyes.
Writing is a very personal thing, but your final goal is to share it with as many people as you can. You want that final product to be the best it can be, so the best thing to do is rewrite.
