Continuity/Obsessive editing

I've sat down to write for substantial amounts of time as of late and have hit a seemingly impassible tendency of mine. I will consistently write about a page worth of words before taking a brief breather. The problem arises when I return to continue writing, and in an attempt to keep continuity, will reread what I had written. As I do this I'm constantly deleting and adding and re reading what's there over and over, until finally I reach where I had left off; only now I'm exhausted.

I close the document for the day and promise myself I'll get to finishing it the next time I sit. But what do you know, when I return I get stuck again in this loop of the constant editing of my first page. I must change a hundred words each time I re read the thing, never content with what I have on the page. I make a little more progress writing and each time I return I get more and more exhausted as I have even more to read and edit as I try to find my place again.

So, any techniques to help keep continuity of a story without re reading it every sitting? The longer the story gets the more horrifying my tendency to consistently edit becomes to me. I'm doing something wrong, that much is clear, and telling myself to stop and just write isn't working well. Any tips on how to get over this?

 

Outlining comes to mind, but I suspect the real answer is to just force yourself to refrain from constant editing.

 

I understand your feeling! I also am notorious for going back and editing things, but in my case I end up starting to type my chapters in Word before I've even finished my first, handwritten draft. That then acts like editing for me and shows where I seemed to have forgotten about continuity. Sometimes it feels like I'm doing a different form of procrastination.

But, I've been having to teach myself to break out of that. I still work on typing on the weekends, but M-F I try to keep pushing forward in my first draft, and I have to tell myself that I should keep aiming for the conclusion and to stop overthinking continuity. I do try to keep things consistent, of course, but if I ever want to see the end of the story I need to keep writing. That is why my first draft is handwritten, because when I write in pencil in a notebook I get tunnel vision, focusing solely on what I'm writing and having no time to over-analyze what was written a chapter or two ago, even if the chapters are easily available if I just flip back a few pages. But the point is, I rarely do editing while I'm writing by hand, and that seems to be helping me with gaining progress, one chapter at a time, no matter how weak or nonsensical a chapter might be. I can worry about editing and cleaning things up when I go to type the chapters later.

Perhaps a technique like this could potentially help? This is coming from someone who constantly procrastinates, or gets stuck halfway through a story and ends up forgetting about it. :/

 

Is there a logical unit to your writing? Mine is firmly divided into scenes, so I only tweak the current scene when I return to working on it.

Or you could decree that you will ONLY read the previous page, no more.

 

Hand-write. Makes it much harder to edit. Then you can type up what you have later after you have finished the chapter/draft without feeling the need to go back and make lots of changes to what you have already written.

 

Basically the advice I gave as well. Even though I write in pencil (meaning I can erase if I want to), my brain still thinks little about editing while doing it by hand. I think it helps keep focus!

 

I had not realised - it was the first thing that came to my mind! I don't typically have this problem, but I do write by hand sometimes just because sometimes the words will come when I write on pen and paper than typing on a screen. I tend to do both these days.

 

I don't really understand the idea of not editing until you have a complete draft of the story down. Finishing a first draft is not the same as finishing your book. And if it's filled with problems and errors, I'm not sure just having completed a draft means all that much. Editing is part of writing. It's a big pat of writing. A messy draft can leave you feeling more discouraged than accomplished. I've always seen value editing and reviewing my work in progress. It doesn't eliminate all the future editing that my story will probably need, but it makes it feel more manageable and more solid to have done some or a good amount of editing along the way. And sometimes fixing problems along the way can prevent you from repeating the same mistakes. I don't really think there is a right or wrong way to approach this. It's really just about how you work and how you want to work.

 

The idea is not to waste time painstakingly editing material that is not going to end up in the final draft anyway. It's more efficient to only spend energy on what you know will stay, which you can only really do once you have the big picture and you know how everything turns out.

 

Sure, but that's not the case for everyone and your answer might not be the right answer for everyone. I went into it in my post, the one you only quoted part of as to bend it just enough to make your point seem better (?).

 

For some people, maybe. Me, I only know whether it'll stay or go after it's edited and polished. (Actually, I don't know then either, but it's definitely a prerequisite.)

I remember reading something about pruning trees--that you may make many, many cuts making one major branch look as good as it's going to look, and only then realize that the whole branch needs to go.

It would be nice if creation could be organized in the most efficient way, but that doesn't mean that it always can. You have to find a way that lets you make progress, but once you've found that, going for more efficiency may not be a good idea.

 

There is nothing wrong with any method, I reckon, UNLESS it keeps you from moving on. Lots of established writers edit what they wrote the day before, before writing onward. It gets them back into the mode where they left off.

However, I think the trick is exactly that. Get back into the mode. Fix anything that is obviously wrong, or add in new ideas you've thought about since yesterday's session. But I would say if you end up just tinkering with words—changing one here and there, then changing it back—or rearranging sentences constantly, then you're stuck in a loop you probably should break out of.

Try to hit the happy medium between leaving a horrible, incoherent mess behind you, and editing everything you wrote yesterday to publishable standard. It doesn't matter how perfect your writing is, if you never reach The End.

 

You previously said that you didn't understand the idea of not editing until you have a complete draft, and so that is why I tried to explain why people do that to you. But it sounds like you already do understand anyway, despite having said you didn't.

 

I have not written any longer pieces so far so I can't say I will do the same if I were to write a novel. But just now I only do SPAG edits while I am editing and writing. In the beginning I did end up with constant rewrites and tweaking of stuff. But the first time you find that you have changed a word and later changed it back again or changing it to a third word then you are ruining things. Any of the words is OK for now. Leave that for a later time. There are too many layers in a story for me to handle them at the same time. If I edit too deep I either don't get any progress at all, or my story consists of fourteen scenes that individually are OK but differ in tone/style.

 

Didn't the OP express that the editing as you go method is NOT working for him?

 

You could abandon this and only allow yourself to re-read the last part after you've written the next part. So you write 500 words, or two pages, or a scene, or whatever your unit is, and when it's done, then you're allowed to smooth out the splice between the previous bit and the new bit. You can go only so far off course that way, because you're still checking continuity every time, but it gets the new writing done while you're still fresh.

 

Disable spell check and auto correct! (best change I ever made) At least that is what worked for me. Some scenes require more attention to detail than others, but you shouldn't fall into the trap of editing while you write.

My daily goal is very clear, write up to or above 1k words a day, some days I reach or exceed my goal, others I have zero spare time to work. If you actually want to have a finished rough draft or manuscript I'd recommend not editing till you have finished your main story arch, flashbacks and fluff scenes can come later. Don't censor your self, let your writing flow onto the page even if it's worse than that one book you hated back in highschool english class. I firmly believe write and editing should be done separately since they are two very different tasks, but that doesn't mean you can't edit, just find what works for you.

My books first draft is almost done at 47k out of 50k words. Wile it's far from perfect I like most of the things I've written so far, minus a couple scenes that probably need a lot of work. I look forward to taking a break and then diving into editing Evergreen once I can look at it with a fresh set of eyes.

If your getting stuck by not having enough structure maybe try outlines or snowflakes or just random brainstorming for world building that relates to the story. I wrote most of Evergreen without outlining even once, though I did brainstorm lots. I got lost down the rabbit hole so to speak. My finale isn't perfect but it's close to what I wanted and took a couple surprising turns, character deaths, and changes of heart. Once I go back with a fine tooth comb I'll make sure it makes me cry and sob with emotions.

 

For me, i always have a separate sheet where i noted down in my draft and it tells me on where to continue the next time i revisit. That will also keep me in the flow of the story that ive written. Lastly, as per mentioned by other fellow author which is to refrain yourself from editing over and over again.

 

Editing takes me almost as long as writing. I think I get 5 pages of first draft material done in the same amount of time as it takes me to do a second draft of 7-8. If I edited as I went, I’d never get a draft finished.

Sometimes the second draft of the first page of a chapter can take me a solid hour.