I think maybe it's common to most sub-cultures, really. I used to ride horses pretty seriously, and there were absolutely different camps in terms of the most effective way to train horses, feed horses, the best equipment to use with horses... and not a lot of recognition that different riders and different animals will do best with different techniques. ETA: And lots of people willing to fight for whatever they thought was best. It would be really comforting if the world could be divided into simple right and wrong, even on non-moral issues, but... it rarely can, in my experience.
I agree, and when people said I couldn't ride my pony cross Antarctica I said watch me, writing is only a different vehicle
That pony is clearly pining for the fjords! ETA: This post will only make sense to people in the overlapping portion of the venn diagram for (fans of Monty Python) and (people who know different pony breeds on sight). For the rest of you... nothing to see here. Move on.
This thread is a story in itself. There are characters, conflicts, climax and a comedic denouement. One wonders if this thread follows the 8 pivot points.
I think it's a personality thing. I feel most comfortable working within defined parameters, with black and white rules. That's part of why I like my job so much - where I have to write to very exacting instructions and deviation isn't rewarded. Maybe if I didn't have this day job, I'd feel the need to follow The Structure for my creative writing.
Pacing is one of the hardest issues to grapple with. You build up to a big moment, it's happens in a blink or two, and your readers feel let down. You spend too long building to a moment and readers lose interest. It's not so much the plot 'points' you hit, but at what rate you hit them and how long each of them lasts. I can't think of any formula to take care of that. Remember those old fairy/folk tales where things always happen in threes and it's the third time lucky? Well the first guy goes through a lot of stuff and fails, which is interesting. The second guy goes through a similar experience and also fails. Then the third guy goes through a similar experience but does everything differenly from the first two, and succeeds. Take too long with that second guy, and your readers will skip, won't they? Yet if you leave the second guy out altogether, the third guy's success seems too easy. So pacing the story is important. All the plot points get hit, but at a different rate.
I don't understand how you think a story has to have that one formula. You ask this question, but it's worded as a false dichotomy. You go on to repeat the false dichotomy which suggests you are looking for a limited answer, not one which seeks to learn how other writers approach their craft. There are story elements that go into a successful book. But it'd be as boring as TV drama series where there's a chase scene in every episode if those elements consisted of pinch points and mid-point plot reversals. Just hearing story formulas makes me cringe. The elements I aim for are, characters you care about, conflict you can relate to, and a story you can escape the real world into because the author creates a world your brain can imagine it is a part of. My story has a message, a comment on society, but not all stories need one. A good mystery or a romance novel doesn't need a higher purpose to make you want to turn the page. The 'hook' is reader dependent, meaning what gets me into a story may not interest my son at all. How can there be a formula for a hook when readers' tastes are so diverse? I'm aiming for page turners and haven't had a minute's thought about plot points, except to know I have no interest in plot point formulas. I am interested in writing characters people care about, with internal and external goals, with lots of conflict (because that moves the story forward), existing in a setting people can imagine in our future, with comment on the good and bad in the world today. And after reading @LostThePlot's and @jannert's comment, I'll add that pacing is another element I pay attention to. Eight plot points don't fit into that framework. If anything they would constrain it. I see my story in terms of elements, not plot points. I don't have an issue with a writer who sees plot points. If that works for you, it works. I'm more of an element pantser than a plot-point planner, myself.
The tricky thing is really defining what's a big edit and what's not. I overwrite everything; I'm not kidding that I cut 90k from my first book, 120k from my second and I'm working on cutting 80k or so from my present project too. So I have to do a good chunk of editing no matter what. But mostly I'm just chopping out weaker parts of scenes. I often have very long conversations (or internal monologues) that I wrote out completely as it came to me without really knowing what I was trying to say or do with it and the result is a lot of stuff that goes round in circles or has random tangents and may well dance around the real issue because until I stumble across it I really don't know what I'm trying to express. So I have to chop a lot out, cut out the extraneous stuff to (hopefully) just leave the good, strong meaningful stuff and at a length that feel appropriate for the scene. I don't have a rule about making structural changes; really it's a case by case thing. I don't change anything because the five act structure says so, but I'll move something if it fits better a little earlier or later; this contemplative moment moved after the next intense scene because it's a better contrast there. I'll re-direct the plot once I've finished primary writing because I read through and it doesn't quite work how I want it so I juggle the order of events and re-write how they interrelate and get something better but I only think in the context of 'nah this doesn't work' not 'the third act is dragging'. It's just gut and feel. I definitely have to edit a lot because I almost don't have a choice. While I rankled at the idea that books were only ever allowed to be 100k long I think that editing my finished projects down has hugely improved them; concentrating the feelings and put the focus on them by removing stuff that isn't important. I've never cut a scene from my books, never cut story stuff for length, I just have lots too many words in every scene. The result is that even if I always write very well there's a bunch of repetition of the same stuff over and over and cutting that down so it's more streamlined and less heavy handed has made my work better even if the standard of writing was overall pretty much the same.
I tend to underwrite, so my edits generally take the form of adding rather than taking away. Yet ANOTHER difference between writers! And I agree, there isn't some arbitrary line that defines what a "big edit" would be, or what "a lot of editing" from your post would be. But if we're talking about story structure (which seems to be the focus of the OP) then I assume we're talking about structural edits (moving, adding, subtracting scenes, etc.) and I often do absolutely none of that, so... "none" seems like a poor match for "a lot of", regardless of the finer definitions of the quantities.
In terms of scenes I really don't add/subtract/move that much but I'm always open to doing it. One of the things about writing mostly straight beginning to end is that I sometimes do just forget where I started off. When I come back I'll often find that the start isn't quite how I remember it; a character who need to change a lot (since I know her better now) and I frequently find a story strand that I meant to focus on but never picked up again because I was too engrossed in something else. I think the real answer here is to just be open to making changes. Whether you like to plan or not what you need to focus on is making a good story, not just sticking to a structure or distancing yourself from one. A good story is one that reads well and anything that supports that is a good thing regardless of if that goes against your style. Even me, the essential anti-planner do still leave myself notes for later scenes and have a spreadsheet for each project that tracks dates and birthdays and miscellaneous bits of tat as I come up with it because that's the only way you get internal consistency and no matter your style you book badly needs to be internally consistent.
Reflecting on the worthy debate, I do tend now to sympathise with @Justin Rocket's original perspective, what with everybody here so sane, rational, rolling in their reasonableness, all this spirit of agreement and harmony is irritating, all those paragraphs of fluff, the fat bellies, I reckon - and don't mind a fat belly, but spice in prose would not go amiss. Kind of prefer the rigid, like Mussolini's version of writing to a boredom sandwich, sometimes, y'know, suppose that's why these guys are popular - dictators, Hitler and such.
I think you're trying too hard to hit the required pivot points of a forum thread. That was one convoluted way to hit the Godwin's Law pinch point.
ahtch? Erm....okaaaay.... Sounds like one of those stifled sneezes that elegant people do. The ones that don't require a tissue to mop up.
J, I can't help the way my mind thinks, it just sounds like that inside, be reasonable. If you must know I can talk about four different ways, a very good gangster, for example. ... [update] don't be gross, @jannert, you'll probably get some kind of warning for that, just saying, watch it.
