Writing an entire first draft before editing

Precisely.

 

I think maybe I don't totally agree with my original post any more!

I do accept that there are many many ways to approach writing, and I hope I didn't come off as a writing fascist, when posting that article. I can certainly understand the need to go back over what you've written and make changes to a work in progress, where you've spotted something you don't like or doesn't work very well. I certainly do that myself.

However, I do think some folks can be terminally sidetracked by polishing and re-polishing a couple of chapters to the extent that they never move on, and I personally know a couple of people like that! They never (or rarely) finish anything, because they're always in this state.

I mean, if you're building a wooden chair from scratch, you don't usually varnish and polish each rung with furniture polish before you have made the next one, do you? You shape it, get it to a pretty good state—maybe even sand it down— then make the next one. It's only after you have made all the pieces, assembled them and applied the glue, that you then varnish and polish the whole chair. Isn't it? Anyway...

I think what struck me as particularly valuable in the article was really the last item. IF you polish a spot of prose to 'perfection' while you write—writing, re-writing and re-writing ad infinitum, polishing it till it shines like the moon–WILL you be willing, once your whole draft is finished, to ditch it completely, if it just doesn't fit any more? Can you throw away that extra (but perfect) chair arm that you made by mistake? Or—have you created such a wonderful paragraph or chapter that you just can't bear to throw it away, and insist on sticking it in there anyway?

 

I write hardly at all but, when I do, I'm a fiddler not a basher. That's just how it is with me. It's not a position I've arrived at through experimentation or analysis.

Sure, I can produce a good number of arguments that exalt fiddling (and denigrate bashing) but these are little more than self-justifications. This is what I naturally do so I'm sure as hell gonna defend it! I have arguments too for the superiority of ginger over blonde hair. And so on.

If I was being super honest I might concede that the tendency to fiddle is a result of vanity. Imagine dying and folk happening upon your unpolished efforts! Dead and shit! Quite a blow.

 

Aha! NOW I understand...!

 

But you wouldn’t feel that blow anyway ‘cause you’d be dead, so what does it matter if some self-important nugget-brain sneers at your SpaGs?

 

Oh, now, you know that, deep down, we all cleave to the dream of immortality.

 

Imagine being immortal and stuck on one sentence for all eternity. “It’s… just… not… perfect… yet.”

 

That's why it's better to believe in reincarnation: after death, you'll get a new face, a new body, a new identity, and won't be affiliated with the crap you wrote in your previous life.

As for the topic, I would like to write freely, without editing, then edit the piece after the writing's done, but I seem to be unable to do that: I write something and when I get stumped, I reread what I wrote and can't help myself. Also, being constantly conscious of all the "rules" can get in the way of that soaring feeling you get when you're in "the zone" and write without limiting yourself. I guess I should listen to Charlie Parker: “Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that bullshit and just play.”

 

I think perfectionists are going to have problems, period. They either won't get past the first chapter or they'll spend eternity rewriting their "completed" draft. So again, to those folks, method doesn't matter because they'll never finish it anyway.

As to editing/revising as one goes, if I've gotten it down the way I want it, there is no decision about getting rid of it later. It belongs, and it belongs because it goes with everything written before it, and everything written afterwards goes with it. Which is why there's only polishing left when I write "The End".

 

"Great. I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. It's not worth it." - Woody Allen in "Hannah and Her Sisters."

 

As long as the fiddling doesn't get in the way of new words being formed, fiddle all you want. That's my opinion.

I tend to look over what I wrote the day before, fix any glaring crap (now there's a funny mind pic) and then move on. Major edit once things are done.

 

Yes, I am willing to ditch whole sections or chapters after I've polished them. I've dumped ten-thousand-word chunks of finely-polished stuff and been happy to do it.

I'm willing to do this for a few reasons. First, I don't delete these chunks, I just remove them from the story. I keep them around so I can reread them if I feel like it - who knows, I might use some of that stuff in a new story. So I don't feel like I'm destroying the work; I just feel like I'm repurposing it.

Second, when I remove large chunks, it's because the story needs it. It means I'd taken a wrong turn and I have to get the story back on track. The story is better without those chunks. Also, I almost always have to write new chunks to fill in the gaps, and that's an opportunity to stay in the world I've built, with the characters I've come to love, for a while longer. And it's an opportunity to try to write new material that's even better than the polished stuff I removed. I love doing that.

Third (and I've mentioned this before), I love writing! I don't feel at all like I've wasted my time if I've written and polished a huge chunk of text I wind up not using. I had a great time writing it and polishing it. I enjoyed it. To me, that's a win whether or not that work gets used. It was fun and it was a great learning experience. It puts pages into my file cabinet I'm proud to have there. Waste of time? No! Anything but.

 

But the odds are so bad, what's the chance of coming back as an heir to Bill Gates vs coming back as a starving Somalian?

 

When I read this thread I began thinking over how I work. Earlier I was one of those who edit, edit and edit as they write, but for the last months I've changed. I do still jump back to do the occasional edit but nowadays my writings have got a more "first draft"-feeling.

Several people have said it before, and I will say it again: This is not a matter of black vs white, instead it's a greyscale. There really is no "either that, or that" since most of us are probably caught somewhere in between.

In some matters I consider myself to be a perfectionist, and writing was one of those. I've got a ton of stories that I never finished, and those that I did finish I had to force myself to stand down and accept what I had. It was not an easy task, and it took a lot of time. Luckily I think I've managed to get past that now and I can feel the flow as I write.

Who cares if you're the king of the world? The point is that even as a starving Somalian the crap you wrote in your previous life will not follow you. You are free from it, forever!

 

If you have a good idea and your novel is flowing well there is no point in going back to edit before you reach the end. But if you come up with new ideas as you go along or change plot points or are just generally not the most organized writer in the world (like me) it is often helpful to go back and 'fix' things up that you've already written. Don't get hung up on the minutiae - grammar, spelling, punctuation and the like that some people in my writing group are obsessed with. Rather, just be sure the writing as a whole is progressing as you wish and keep your eye on the finish line.

 

I'm of the thought that as one develops as a writer (or has had grammar/spelling drilled into them) that those minutiae become second nature, and require little or no thought or revision. And my books don't progress as I wish if I don't get it right the first time (revisions and I do not see eye to eye). But again, it's all down to the individual and what works best for them. The only really important thing is that the project gets finished, one way or another.

 

I have realized that it doesn't matter how the story looks at first as long as you get it down. thanks for the advice. I was going to post a forum like this, but I think I found what I was looking for. thanks. I'm new by the way.

 

Hi Christy, welcome to the forum. It's always nice to hear other people have the same issues, definitely lessens the insecurity.

 

thanks for the welcome.

 

Shiny moon pieces drop into my manuscript from time to time, utterly unexpected and unbidden. Sometimes it's just one of those moments when inspiration strikes. There's this scene of Shadow Walker that I absolutely insist I keep, not because I've sat down for hours polishing it - it was one of those scenes that pretty much came out perfect the first time - but because it is a striking idea, too striking to lose.

I have, however, ditched other shiny bits before. Including a scene I used to love - I spent 5 hours writing it and the whole thing was like, what, 1000 words? And mostly dialogue too. Elements of this scene is still in my book (you've read it Jan!) but it's not the same, it's not the same little gem I loved. But the current scene makes more sense than the old one, so... what can you do? lol. I'm not sure it's really as lovely as I remember it to be honest - I do have the old draft but I haven't read it in years - but I remember it fondly.

There's another shiny part that I scrapped, actually - the same kind as the Shadow Walker scene I mentioned above. It came out and it was perfect in the first time round. I captured something in that scene, some sense of sensitivity and madness and tragedy.

And that character doesn't even exist anymore

 

Scrapping shiny bits. That's hard.

Just had to scrap a few of mine last week, which slowed my story flow. I've also had to ditch a couple of chapters along the way which, while shiny, just did not advance the tale, but stalled it instead.

It's hard, sometimes, to re-envision a scene, or to say 'no this didn't actually happen,' when you KNOW it DID! Grrr. But it's always worth making these changes after the whole story is done, once you see the bits that don't fit. I'm not sorry I wrote these bits, even though they were discarded later. I'd only be sorry if they were so precious to me that I just couldn't dump them, despite recognising that they need to go.

I guess my whole point of my original post was that you're unlikely to spot these bits until you have a first draft completely in place. I still maintain this view, although I allow that some people like to polish more than others AS they write. But it doesn't matter how fond you've become of a scene, character, or bit of prose ...if it's an extra chair leg, you'll need to ditch it once the project is completed.

 

I have to disagree with the "unlikely" - people who edit as they write become pretty adept at seeing those bits when they happen. Or, if they write like a lot of us do, those bits don't happen because they wouldn't logically follow what's been written. And it's not just "some people like to polish" - it's that for many people it works best. Others may not understand it, or how one can do it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work and work very well.

 

That's actually a fair point. I know I'm making fewer of these story flow 'mistakes' the more I write.

However, I'm also writing in a more linear fashion now than I used to. When you write organically, just allowing a story to develop as it does, it's quite easy to have spent a lot of time on chapters which ultimately don't really fit, however polished they may be as a stand-alone entity.

I think it's an unusual writer indeed, who can write to perfection each day, and doesn't have to edit the whole piece once they're 'finished' writing it.

 

Again - not "perfection". Just right. And I think you'd be surprised at how many writers do just that.

ETA: Just noticed your Corbett quote in your sig. Rather ironic

 

Ah, you misunderstand the Corbett quote. It's got nothing to do with editing or writing first drafts. It was part of his article warning writers not to say things twice. A good warning for the likes of me who is tempted to make a statement, and then explain it further by restating it in a slightly different manner.

I may have picked you up wrongly, but are you implying that you don't need to edit your finished story, simply because you get it 'right' the first time? If so, you really are in the minority—but good luck to you! Those of us wannabe writers who wallow in the swamps of inconsistency and bad word choices edit our socks off, during AND after the act. That's the only way we ever get it 'right.'