The Best Tool for Rewriting is Time

One of the best ways to deal with this attachment issue is to get distance from your writing by letting it sit for a while.  This way, when you get back to it, you are less invested in the prose and other elements of your story and can view it more objectively. This waiting period can happen quite naturally if you give your completed novel (or even just a couple of chapters) to your beta readers.  In my experience, they always take a while to get around to reading it, and if you let this work sit until you’ve gotten feedback from all the ones who can give it to you, you've organically created the time/distance I'm recommending.

A lot of writers knock themselves if they are struggling with a story, and feel they just have to put it into a drawer, but I personally think this is a great thing to do for precisely the above reasons.  A lot of times I've hit a brick wall with a story, and just by letting it sit, I was able to come back to it with fresh eyes and see things that I'd been too close to identify before.  This not only made the prose and characters stronger, but allowed me to break through the "brick wall" I'd encountered before, as my creative juices had been recharged and I didn't approach it feeling "stuck."

We all get very attached to what we’ve written,
which is why they call it “Killing Your Darlings.”

One of the best ways to deal with this attachment issue is to get distance from your writing by letting it sit for a while.  This way, when you get back to it, you are less invested in the prose and other elements of your story and can view it more objectively. This waiting period can happen quite naturally if you give your completed novel (or even just a couple of chapters) to your beta readers.  In my experience, they always take a while to get around to reading it, and if you let this work sit until you’ve gotten feedback from all the ones who can give it to you, you've organically created the time/distance I'm recommending.

A lot of writers knock themselves if they are struggling with a story, and feel they just have to put it into a drawer, but I personally think this is a great thing to do for precisely the above reasons.  A lot of times I've hit a brick wall with a story, and just by letting it sit, I was able to come back to it with fresh eyes and see things that I'd been too close to identify before.  This not only made the prose and characters stronger, but allowed me to break through the "brick wall" I'd encountered before, as my creative juices had been recharged and I didn't approach it feeling "stuck."

We all get very attached to what we’ve written,
which is why they call it “Killing Your Darlings.”