Hi, I am in the process of writing my first novel. I have a tendency to edit as I write. I'll write a couple of pages and then go back on those pages and make changes. Problem is, I don't seem to be able to progress as fast as I'd like. My question: What is the best way to go about editing? Am I best just writing my first draft and edit after that, or am I best editing as I go a long? or a combination of the two?. If I was to hazard a guess I'd say the latter. In which case do you have any tips or ideas that will help me to do this, yet progress at a steady pace. Thanks in advance for any help.
You are going to get a variety of different answers on this subject, everyone does it their own way. My advice would be to try out some different ways of editing, and see what works or you!
Hello there. I used to do pretty much exactly what you describe, except with paragraphs instead of pages. I'd get hung up on them to the point that it killed any forward momentum. Lately, though, my process has changed. I'm working on my fifth attempted novel, and this one will most definitely be finished. I edit on a chapter by chapter basis - that is to say, blocks of writing ranging from 6k to 10k words that do not represent the final chapter division - and I find that this method works wonderfully for me. Of course, sometimes I can't help but do a few small tweaks as I go, but that's to be expected. That's fine, so long as you don't get bogged down with that stuff I take care not to overwork anything, so one or two final revisions will be needed once everything is written, but polishing the writing to a decent standard helps me keep interest and faith in the end product. So, yeah, my vote would be for a "combined arms" approach, but really, each writer has to figure out what works best for them. Best of luck with honing your process, and be aware that it could take a bit of time before you really find your way.
Thank you very much for your reply! This sounds exactly like me and I live your chapter by chapter approach!
Sure thing, happy to be useful. Another thing I forgot to mention is that, for me, writing short stories (with deadlines and min/max word counts) really helped tremendously with managing momentum on a smaller scale. I wrote eight or so in half a year's time, and now I'm much more comfortable with keeping organized and moving ahead with novel-size projects. I recommend giving it a shot. We have some wonderful contests on this forum you might care to take a look at.
I edit scene by scene. I have an idea for a scene, I write it (sometimes it's coherent and stays that way; sometimes I thrash around, make a horrible mishmash, and slowly get it to gel), I edit and polish it well beyond any rational level for a first draft of a novel (because that's one of the things that I need to please myself and make myself enjoy the process) and then I move on to another scene. (Not "the next" scene, because I'm absolutely not writing in order.) When a choice for a scene means that something substantial in a previously polished scene needs to be changed, I tend to just make a note, unless I think I'd enjoy taking that older scene apart, reassembling it, and re-polishing it.
I work off the first draft my writing partner turns out, which is after considerable discussion between us, and usually some reworking on her part as we make refinements along the way. I'll write some vignettes to get a feel for things, find the hook in the chapter, loosely choreograph it, and then dive straight in. I immerse myself in the chapter and won't move on until I'm in love with it. I don't jump around from chapter to chapter, though. I'm very linear that way. In fact it is only now, some nine months into the project, that we're finally outlining the story proper. It's not at all conventional, nor would I suggest that others use this process... but it's working for us! What can I say... I LOVE EDITING!
As you have already noticed, this is a highly personal style. I am going to share the system that works for me. For decades, as an engineer, I wrote (and still write) some voluminous tech manuals of several hundred pages. Initially, I was with a very small company, and I was composer, typist and editor. I had a few co-workers that reviewed my work, and occasionally had murder-boards on them where a group would try to pick it apart. But basically, my technical products were mine from conception to delivery to the customer (US Navy). I have come to like that, and gives me a sense of ownership that many people often don't get. It has also forced me to very precise in my work, because if I don't catch it, likely no one will. So this has developed my style for fiction. First when I finish a paragraph and hit the enter key, I go back to read what I just read for misspelled, missing or duplicated words, etc, clarity of meaning, and (my particular failing) run-on sentences. I fix those immediately, then move on. When I finish a chapter I go back and review it again, for much of the same, and for organization and flow. At that point, I have a someone review that chapter. For fiction, that is my wife, for my professional work, that is a trusted co-worker who will catch technical inaccuracies, clarity issues, etc. I fix those. At that point I move on. That chapter is as good as it is going to get, until the others are done. If, in the course of the story, I feel I have to make a change in a preceding chapter, that is what sticky notes and marginalia are for. There is a difference between editing and revising. Editing fixes minor mechanical issues, revision changes the story. I don't like to revise while I am writing, because one change will beget another, and if I change while the story is still in progress, my house of cards tends to collapse on me. Often, a change I though might be important, turns out not to be as important, or different from what I initially thought it would be. It is easy to throw post it stickies in the trash and write another, but if you have made a hard change, then you may find yourself in a loop of endless hard changes. I find editing (the revision kind) to be incompatible with creative writing. When I am first putting words to paper, technical or fiction, I am on fire with how good it is going to be, envisioning getting to the end. That motivates me. Revision editing, on the other hand, forces me to be critical of what I have done.... who the hell wrote that piece of crap? Couldn't have been me... oh, it was. I can't compartmentalize those two mindsets to do them together in real time. So I write first, then revise. And the revision then reverts back to the creative phase when I start rewriting. The one time I stopped to look back on my big book, "The Eagle and the Dragon," I got so discouraged I quit, and didn't touch it again for seven years. So I won't do that again.Having said that, I just did! The sequel to E&D includes the Roman invasion of Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 115AD. I had Trajan planning the invasion, with the legion commanders in Rome. I just got a very comprehensive book on that war and found that Trajan sent Hadrian (who wound up his successor) to Syria as governor in 111-112 to plan that operation from Antioch. So I just rewrote that chapter last night. However, I just got started on that sequel, about 25 pages in, and mostly it was a name change, and an opportunity to cover it a bit better. And the follow-on chapters have not yet been written, so there were no other chapters affected by the change. So there are always exceptions. Hope you got some good advice here, @OB1
I tend to do both - theres no problem with revising as you write so long as it doesnt become procrastination
I'm the type of writer who has to make edits as I go along instead of waiting to finish the first draft...mostly because I have yet to even finish the first draft of an original story! But, besides that, I find it helpful to refine my thoughts and such. If I get writer's block in my first draft, I may go about typing up some previous chapters (I hand write my first draft and type the second), and once I start typing, I go into "editing mode" with very little effort. It's once I start typing that I catch my mistakes and find spots where I can either build upon a scene or add a new one entirely. I'm more analytical during that phase. But, on to the point: If I'm typing (and therefore editing) while my story is still going on, then I can come up with ideas that will impact the rest of the story, and I therefore can keep those new ideas into consideration as I continue writing the first draft. For me, it's a very helpful way to get my thought processes going, while also staying busy even if I'm stuck on the first draft. Long story short: I prefer editing while still working on a WIP. It's helpful. Others may be different.
It's a very individual process, as you can see from the variety of answers. As @big soft moose said, editing is fine as long as it isn't procrastination. The "best way" is what works for you. Being dyslexic, the thought of having a gigantic unedited document (novel) is overwhelming, so I edit in chunks as I go, usually chapter by chapter, occasionally page by page. In the initial writing, I do correct spelling and punctuation errors, and I try to nail down the basic rhythm and flow of the sentences and the connection of the paragraphs to one another. It's only on a much later pass that I change things like repeated words. For fiction, I have two alpha readers who help me out with different things. One is a scene alpha I jokingly call the "pre-Alpha alpha", who gets my most basic, loosely-edited version of problematic scenes to see if my research is incorporated correctly and to tell me whether the concept of the scene works, and whether the scene focuses on the right things. That way I'll know whether or not to continue with it. My other alpha is a reader and gets all the scenes, in a more polished version, closer to what my Betas will get later. When I get stuck, I edit the previous chapter or two to try to kickstart my writing brain. The result is that some of my "first draft" chapters and pages have had six or seven passes, and others just one or two. To some writers, my working method would sound like a mess, but it works for me. In the end, all that matters is what works for you.