I'm starting to feel like everything I write takes me a million drafts. I can feel myself getting closer each draft of a chapter or a short story, but I really got to work my pieces of writing. I will totally say I edit as I write, but I can also say that does nothing or very little in the big picture of what it takes for me to get the writing there. Know what I mean? Does it take anyone else a million drafts to get it right? Why do I feel like this is getting harder?
I think this probably shows that your reading skills are more mature then your writing skills. This is one of the main reasons I’ve picked up and dropped writing a dozen times in my life... it takes work to make your work good and I think you should at least consider it a good thing that you can tell!! Anyways I say just keep pushing through the multiple drafts.
Yes. Nonfiction (mostly blog posts) takes me three or four drafts. Each fictional scene takes more drafts than I bother to count—and that’s in the “first draft” of this novel. But I’m meeting my goal of one polished scene per two days, so that’s OK right now.
Maybe not a million, but definitely something leaning in that direction. Don't know. For me I feel like it keeps getting better.
Longer stuff takes me a couple of dozen drafts at least. Shorter stuff I can generally get away with two or three. Dialogue is the worst for me, because if I change what a character say, then I always feel like I have to change the way another character would respond, then I basically have to do scenes multiple times to get everything back on track and make sure all the important stuff is covered without too much extraneous banter.
My process is something like this: Complete story (1st draft) Revise & Edit on computer (2nd draft) Print hard copy, revise and edit from that (3rd draft) Send to betas, revise and edit based on feedback (4th draft) One last go-over for SPaG errors. (5th draft, which is what winds up getting submitted) I feel like that's more than enough editing/drafts for me. It's thorough, but also attainable and keeps me from spinning my wheels endlessly. I don't actively work on more than one writing project at a time, so if I don't decide at some point it's as good as it's going to get and ship it off to the publisher, I'm not going to put very many books out. I'm not really a perfectionist when it comes to writing.
I like it. It’s sort of like mine: 1 - rough 2 - story edits and cuts 3 - prose 4 - read out loud, send to betas 5 - revise 6 - read out loud
There's an expression (allegedly Leonardo da Vinci): "Art is never finished. Only abandoned." So, yeah, infinite edits are possible. Eventually one is 'good enough' to ship.
Officially, I'm on draft 5, but I also revise each scene multiple times before moving on to the next, like drafts within drafts. I thought I was getting ready for the betas, but I have started thinking I should do a line edit first, starting from the end. I don't think the process is getting any harder, but it is sure getting longer.
I think this is where writing a novel and writing a short story can differ A LOT. Short stories are pieces which are entire—but short. A novel, however, is like writing 30 short stories that all need to fit together so plot, characters and setting details are all consistent ...but move forward at the correct pace as well. I think the plus for short story writers is that they can write Story One, can put it aside, write three more, then go back to Story One and see it with fresh eyes. I think, if you can develop that habit, you'll find that the editing process wastes far less time. You'll be able to zero in on problems and see solutions that simply won't appear while you're still too close to the original writing. I know for me, a novelist, the 'fresh eyes' thing is also crucial—but it's more difficult to achieve. The major changes I made to my novel's draft was after I'd left it totally alone for 5 years. When I picked it up again, I saw immediately what needed work, and I had no compunction about making major changes. It truly was as if somebody else had written it. I no longer felt tied to my words and had no trouble getting rid of lots of them. I was able to write better transitions, combine a couple of chapters, change the order of two chapters, change the POV in two chapters and even write a NEW chapter—while still cutting out a third of the total word count. This is what the fresh view of the story gave me the courage and insight to do. Of course I also edit 'as I write.' However, the editing I do the day after I've written a chapter is usually not all that insightful. If I can leave a chapter alone for months (even years) then when I come back to it, I see lots of things I missed the first time around. It's just a lot more complicated with a novel, because while you're changing one bit, you have to go back through and change everything else so it all matches up and doesn't leave plot holes or references that no longer fit. You can always do line editing and proofreading right away, of course. That's just bitty work that only requires attention, not insight. But when it comes to overall story flow—what to change, what to keep, what to discard, what to refocus—then you really do need some distance, I reckon. It saves work, in the long run. And, as a learning exercise, it really can't be beaten.
Yeah, @jannert. You're right. I wish it didn't take time the way it does for me to really get it right. I think I'm going to try out your system. See if I can't have a few things in different stages that I come back to.
I think it does take a million drafts. When you dead it says: 2 novels, 25 short stories, 8 articles. ... go find your short from February 2016, the final, polished version posted to Tin House/New Yorker at 3am - take out 8 clauses, then post again. Umm, rejection e-post just arrived...scrap the advice.
I don't think of a novel as a collection of short stories. Short stories are finished in themselves. In a novel, each scene/chapter has to introduce the next, not to mention it bears the weight of everything written that far. It's not supposed to stand on its own, detached from the rest. So I can't agree with that.
Oh, I didn't meant the end result was the same as a collection of short stories. Sorry. I probably put that badly. What I meant was writing a novel is LIKE writing a bunch of short stories—in that each separate chapter has a beginning, middle and end, and each chapter has a purpose and place that makes it different from the other chapters. However, you can't look at each chapter as a separate entity while editing your novel. They all have to hang together and move forward, not only internally, but as a group. One leads to another, etc. Unlike a short story, no chapter is meant to stand alone. I think that's what you're saying, and I totally agree. Actually it's what I was trying to say as well. I was saying that editing a short story is a lot different from editing a novel. You can't just put one chapter away and forget about it while you write or edit the others, like you can a short story. You have to keep all the chapters in mind, and remember what each of them contains. Otherwise it's Plot Hole City and Continuity Hell.
Jannert said it best,"Distance is needed before editing." How much distance is relevant to your time and progress. I never edit a chapter until I'm at least 4 or 5 chapters ahead and that depends on how the story's timeline has flowed or details have changed. Sometimes, I first edit a chapter that was written a month ago. That fresh eyes thing really is a benefit.
Can anyone else write endless drafts or feel like that's the case? I find that no matter what it is or how pleased with something I am, every time I go through it, I find changes I want to make. And what I'm talking about is editing and reworking and rewriting. I'm not just talking about tinkering and polishing. I don't even know anymore. I write a lot of short stories, and once one of them gets rejected enough I go back over it. And most of the time I don't know what I was thinking sending it out, but I can remember I loved it and truly thought it was ready for submission and also truly thought it had a chance of being picked up. I have some stories that I've been rewriting and reworking for years. And those ones that I've spent years on are probably the best I have, but even those... I don't know if they're done. Some of them hardly resemble the original, which in those cases it's probably a good thing. So, does it really take me years to write a short story? I just finished a new one yesterday. I was in love with it (probably because it was done). I wanted my lover to read it, but we both know this is a request I often (or always) put out too soon. My lover told me to go over it again. So, I did. And draft two was born. I was very happy my lover turned down the chance to read my first draft. My lover planned to read my story tonight so bright and early I went back to my story. After a few more hours draft three was done. Each time I think it's done and as good as I can get it, but every time I go back to it, I find things to change and ways to improve it. How many drafts is this going to take? It seems like there is no end in sight when it comes to my revision process. My lover made me promise I wouldn't submit my new story. Said it's not ready. Said I know this. I have beta swapping plans with a few of you after the weekend. I want to have this story shine by then. But the other problem I have is that the more times I go over a story the stupider it starts to sound to me. And then I can't tell if it's a really stupid story or I'm just sick of it. It's kind of important to me that I finish everything that needs addressing in my new story in a timely fashion. I want to submit it to a publication where recently the editor wrote me a nice and detailed rejection on another story. With my new story (which is completely different), I tried to make sure the issues he had with my last story weren't reappearing. I wrote my new story specifically for this editor and this publication. And I want to give him something new while there is still a chance he might remember me. I know a lot of people say giving something time helps when it comes to editing. I can agree with that, but it also seems like I could be editing and making changes during all that time as well. The endless editing. The endless drafts. Can anyone relate?
I had a short story I rewrote 8-9 times and then abandoned. Yeah, I’ll reread something I revised yesterday and wonder how a lame phrase snuck past me. There always seems to be more lol
Do you mean to say that when you re-read a story of yours, you don't just notice how replacing one word with another would convey your meaning better, but you actually feel like altering the sequence of events or who said what and such? And another time you re-read it, you might feel like changing it back?
Heinlein's Rules are what you're looking for. Most particularly, Rule #3. There's no point in rewriting a story just because it's rejected. If you're a competent writer, most of the time the rejection will be nothing to do with whether it's a good story in some ideal Aristotlean sense. And if does just need a quick revision to fit the market, the editor will probably tell you that and offer to buy if you make that revision. More likely it was rejected because it's not the right story for that market at that time, or the market (book, magazine, genre publishing schedule) is full and they don't have space for any more stories right now. Or because Stephen King just wrote the same story and it's going in the same issue of the magazine that you submitted for. Seriously, the world is full of successful genre writers who'll tell you they weren't getting anywhere until they stopped fiddling with the same story over and over and started following Heinlein's Rules. But, if you're writing literary fiction, you probably should rewrite it fifty times and tell everyone that you rewrote it a hundred times. Because that's what the market expects.
That's kind of BS because the less work it is for an editor, the easier it is to take your story. And I don't know how much short fiction you're selling, but I don't think anyone who does this for real is submitting first drafts. That's just stupid and a waste of everyone's time. I write mostly literary but have been giving genre a go as well. I think both require the same amount of work to be successful.
