Edit as you go along or at the end ?

I do basic edits as I go along (like if I see I misused a word, etc), but I save the extensive edits for after I've done the bulk of the writing.

 

Thanks for your replies, a real mixed bag here. I can see the benefits of both methods. I like the idea of editing as I go along but I can also see the advantages of writing and writing while the mood is on.

I guess it's a personal choice.

Paul

 

ditto.

 

It's more of a character trait than a personal choice, I think. Some people can charge through their stories without ever looking back, then go back to the beginning and rewrite from scratch. I just can't face that much soggy garbage in my manuscript. I have to edit, rewrite, and polish as I go, because I know tomorrow I'm going to have to reread what I wrote today, and I want to be proud of it so I can have the confidence and inspiration to go on. If I thought yesterday's work was bad, I don't think I could proceed.

I don't think that editing and polishing as you go impairs creativity. In my case, it enhances it, because the editing process forces me to see new connections between events and images in my story that may strengthen my theme as I go. I'd miss that if I just charged ahead, damn the torpedoes, and all that.

But some see it differently. Some people fill their spare time as adrenaline junkies, skydiving and so on. Others refinish fine furniture. It's not really a choice for them - the adrenaline junkie would die of boredom refinishing an antique, but the refinisher gets a deep sense of satisfaction from making something beautiful again. On the other hand, the refinisher would skydive once and probably say "Never again! That's the most stressful experience I ever had!" Different types of people, different approaches to writing. And they probably produce different kinds of fiction.

And that's what makes the world go 'round.

 

I've got to do some as I go along. Every once in a while I go back to the beginning and just start reading. Sometimes I discover something and fix it up and sometimes I just get lost in my own story, and thats always nice
But I'm about 55,000 words in now and I am NOT looking forward to the re-writes. Since I do so much of it as I go I am generally pretty happy with it the way it is. Now, when I go back after 80 to 100,000 words...I guess I'll find out then!

 

Well there're 2 types of editing for me. There's the scene-by-scene edit and then there's the overall, fuller kinda edit. I like to write a scene (anything between 2-5 pages) and then re-read and edit and make sure it reads all right before I move on. I actually can't move on if a scene doesn't feel right, because what happens in it affects the next scene and the direction of the novel - so it has to be right. (I'm the sort who kinda plans as I go along)

But I wouldn't go further back than a scene or two or I'd never finish. I'd do the overall edit once I've finished my first draft.

 

Just the very basics. I stop every 5,000 words and carefully read over my writing. I'm prone to Freudian slips and it happens more when I'm tired. I'll read over the manuscript when I'm done writing. That can be anywhere from one to six months. I'll then rewrite it a few times to improve it and send it into my editor to see what can be done to make it attractive to publishers.

 

I generally don't edit until I'm done. I turn off the spell checker and just plow through. As someone said, what if you spend all the time editing, only to realize that you have to change a major sub-plot, or an entire character? It's a lot of time wasted.

Having said that, though, sometimes I get the urge to stop and edit, especially when I realize how many changes I've got to make. But that's why I keep notes on my computer, so I don't forget them later on.

 

Or - what if you spend all the time writing, only to realize that you have to change a major sub-plot, or an entire character? The whole story wasted...

 

it is up to you but I would do that later and get the first draft finished first

 

even to get some distance to your own ideas and writing. what you wrote might seem great at the moment but when you go back and read it through later you realize it doesn't hold, or doesn't make sense, or isn't really that interesting/relevant to the plot, even though you might like the scene or whatever... these things you don't understand until some time has passed and if you edit as you go along you might still end up having to rewrite big parts because you've changed your mind about some of them.

 

I edit a lot along the way.

 

According to what Stephen King said in The Secret Miracle, he considers "five pages [a day] and a little left over to start with tomorrow" as a good days work. The brackets are mine.

I was surprised at how little many of the novelists wrote per day. When I started writing, I just plowed through ten or so pages in an evening, sometimes more. Since then I have decided to pull back and try around four pages in the morning.

I mention the editing here because I can't imagine that King is doing a full days work of five pages without being careful with his writing and mentally editing as he writes.

Sometimes it is hard for me to move forward, so I go back to the old stuff and edit and expand it. That way I am still writing on schedule, even if I don't feel like moving the plot forward.

But then again, I'm just about to throw out what i was working on (though it was only 3000 wrds and a couple of uncounted chapters that were totally re-written) and start over again. And I haven't finished a novel at all--so I would take my own perceptions with a grain of salt.

 

Why does everyone in this forum keep on bringing up Stephen King as the prime example of a writer? I know he's successful. I know he's prolific. But that doesn't make him the model that we should all emulate. Everyone on this forum seems to say "Stephen King does it this way, so that's what we should all do."

Stephen King is not the be-all and end-all of writers. Some of us prefer to follow other models. Ernest Hemingway only published seven novels in his lifetime (along with some collections of short stories), and he won the Nobel Prize, and is still in print 50 years after his death. (Other Hemingway works have appeared posthumously.) James Joyce published only four works of fiction, plus a play and a collection of poems, during his lifetime. Other great writers have published much less than King, but have had more influence.

Why does everybody cite King as the standard of writing?

 

Because he is a Legend in his own mind?

But go easy on the King fans. He has written a few decent novels, despite the many awful ones he has vomited up as well. And part of a writer's journey is learning to objectively evaluate his or her writing idols.

King's writing, like that of any major writer, contains useful lessons. Some are positive - some of King's characters are beautifully crafted, and he has told a few truly engrossing tales. And some are lessons of what not to do. The trick is learning to recognize which are which.

 

Sometimes I think one should pay no attention to what successful writers say Mainly because they're bound to contradict each other

Seriously, looking at what various successes say about how to write illustrates the "Prime Directive for Writers" - with each story, experiment until you find the method that works, and that is the best way to write that story.

 

I would love to say that I edit at the end because I see the value in that but unfortunately I was raised by two english professors so I developed the edit-as-you-go habit as a defense mechanism.

 

Minstrel--I bring up Stephen King because he is successful and fairly modern. I admire what he has accomplished. But honestly, I don't read a lot of King's stuff because I don't like horror, even though I'm sure that I would learn a lot from reading his novels. From the little I have read, he seems to make good dialogue and I like the flow of his words. Maybe I will try reading them again some time. However, I thought Faulkner's "That Evening Sun" was amazing, especially the ending.

As an inexperienced writer, I appreciate the knowledge that more successful writers pass to the public. King shares a lot of his writing techniques and many of them seem logical and accessible. Also, in the book I cited, several other successful authors revealed writing less than five pages per day.

But, your point is taken. Also, many current authors are probably influenced by King's techniques, just as many of Hemingway's contemporaries were influenced by him, even though there were other excellent authors of that time who wrote differently than Hemingway. Faulkner is a good example. I personally prefer Zora Neele Hurston over Hemingway, though she is less acknowledged.

I agree with shadowwalker too. They do contradict each other. Experimenting seems like a good idea. Thanks for that suggestion shadowwalker. There are so many different plausible ways to write a story. I keep looking for some formula--but they all contradict each other.

 

I just want to say that today I wrote sixteen pages (a lot of dialogue) and edited them some, and I also edited about twelve or so pages of previous work.

I thought of this thread after I wrote, and I think I will take shadowalker's advice--whatever works. I also felt that minstrel's challenging of the Stephen King standard did me good.

If I still felt good after sixteen pages, then why should I stop at three or four?

I learned the drawing technique of first sketching a rough image--kind of like an outline, and then alternating darker and lighter layers. On each layer you either erase or add. Eventually, you must tie everything together--but not until the end. I don't see why writing can't be done in similar stages.

 

Personal preference. If I stop to edit I tend to dwell and rewrite and it just takes too long to finish a chapter, let alone a novel. Whatever feels natural.