1. Writeorflight

    Writeorflight Active Member

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    Write now, edit later?

    Discussion in 'Revision and Editing' started by Writeorflight, Mar 9, 2019.

    When you guys write your first manuscripts, do you just plow through it and worry about making a nice story later? Or do you at least attempt to make it a relatively polished foundation for future revisions?

    I'm struggling with getting through my first manuscript. I'm about 10 pages in, and my writing is diarrhea (pardon the image). I'm a major perfectionist though, and a very visual person, so feeling like all these pages aren't adding up to the exact vision that I'm picturing makes it hard to move forward. But once again, it's only the first manuscript, and I know my focus should just be on getting the story down on paper and worry about the semantics later.

    Let me know what process works best for you guys, and any advice you have on getting through the first manuscript!
     
  2. XRD_author

    XRD_author Banned

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    When I write, I just write.

    My first revision pass will often reduce the first draft to 60% of what it was.
    I have a tendency to be too explicit (by which I mean including things that are either inherent or implied by the previous text) in my first draft, e.g.:

    John put the gun on the table.
    Bob picked up the gun that Bob had placed on the table.​

    even though there is no other gun. I exaggerate a little, but it's bleed-over from my "day job."
    Another bleed-over is that I don't use contractions in my day job.

    That said, I go back and forth between writing new and revising old, according to my mood. Revising old is less daunting.
     
  3. Rzero

    Rzero Reluctant voice of his generation Contributor

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    At this point I'm only an expert on ways that didn't work for me, but I can identify with your predicament. For years I polished the hell out of everything I wrote and never finished a story. Now I'm trying the other approach, and I'm practically prolific. Well, I'm consistent at least, and that makes me feel almost prolific. We'll see what the final results are. God only knows if it will be any good, but I'm finally going to finish a first draft. You might get a hundred different answers to this question, because many variations to each approach have worked for various writers. Hell, Kurt Vonnegut never wrote a second draft, but he'd often spend days on a paragraph or even months on a page, while Stephen King won't even address a major plot hole, if one emerges, until the second draft. As one perfectionist to another, I would seriously consider plowing through and perfecting later. It's painful at first, like impromptu public speaking painful, but it gets so much easier as you go.
     
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  4. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    I think it's really hard to know how a story is shaping up when you're only ten pages in. But, honestly, you have to do what you feel is right. I'm not a perfectionist, but I do go back and edit and rewrite. I've even restarted my novel more than once. Personally, I think my story is better for it. I don't really have a problem finishing things. I imagine I'll get there with this story or another. I find a messy draft very hard if not impossible to work with. Some people think they can clean it all up later, and maybe they can. That's not something I want to put off. I know how much work revision takes. And I know even doing what I can along the way isn't going to change the fact that there is still going to be a long revision process when I'm finally done. There are a million answers to this question, and I have a feeling you already have some idea on how to proceed and what will work best for you.
     
  5. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I know not everybody works the same way. I, too, am a perfectionist. However, I apply my perfectionism to editing after my story has been written.

    I don't understand how you can make something 'perfect' when you don't know what the total product will be. I'd say get your raw material all together, then start perfecting it.


    The good thing about writing is that nothing is set in stone (until you publish it.) If you finish your first draft and discover mistakes that require some rewriting—and you certainly will—well, do the rewriting. At least if you've finished your story, you'll know it's the right thing to do.

    When you're just getting started, you can write perfect paragraphs and sentences, create the perfect opener, etc ...but you might be focusing on the wrong characters, or sending the whole thing off in the wrong direction, setting an awkward tone, creating a situation that's going to go off track soon ...umpteen kinds of mistakes which have nothing to do with perfect sentence and paragraph structure, or perfect word choices. You won't recognise these kinds of mistakes till you're done. Then you'll need to completely re-do the beginning anyway.

    I'd say work on story basics, like structure, believability, compelling character development, avoiding plot holes, and all those other issues that can ruin a story if they're not done right. Then you can go back and 'perfect' the writing itself.

    Obviously you can do a quick edit as you write ...looking for SPAG errors, etc. But don't spend too much time today rewriting what you wrote yesterday. Just keep going. That's my opinion, anyway. I think the world is full of 'perfect' first few chapters that never get published because the writer fails to move on and finish the story. It's an issue that seems to plague a lot of people on this forum, anyway.

    .....edited.......

    It just struck me that if—as you say—your story isn't fitting your vision, perhaps what you really need to do is to take a thinking break (rather than writing.) If it's just the wording you don't like, you can fix that later. But if the story itself isn't right, or lacks something, then it's probably more thinking time you need. (Been there, done that, by the way.) If you keep thinking about your story in your 'off' moments, sooner or later one of those moments will become a Eureka moment—and you'll suddenly know where you're going wrong.
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2019
  6. Partridge

    Partridge Senior Member

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    Write first, edit later?

    Yes, yes, yes and yes.

    Editing as you go is like cleaning your living room during a house party. It's impossible, and you won't have a great time of either. Go mad, then clear the mess up when you're done.

    Not only that, but if you save your editing for when your first draft is finished, you'll be more motivated because you feel like you have a finished thing to work on, your progress will be more tangible.

    Remember that you will go through several drafts, and the chances are that your work three drafts later will be almost unrecognizable from the first draft. So why stress over making something perfect that you're going to take apart anyway?
     
  7. Rzero

    Rzero Reluctant voice of his generation Contributor

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    Yup.

    ETA: See, I do write pretty on the first try. :)
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2019
  8. LoaDyron

    LoaDyron Contributor Contributor

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    Your first draft will never be perfect, far from that. You still will have stuff that doesn't make sense, characters out of character, extra scenes that are irrelevant to the plot, and the list goes on of mistakes. Write first; all your ideas, don't worry if the scenes make sense. When you have your story does, yes start to spot the mistakes for you later polish it. I hope this helps. :supersmile:
     
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  9. Solar

    Solar Banned Contributor

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    So if you write a few pages in a session, you won't go back and quickly edit it if you happen
    to come up with a better idea, while it's fresh in your mind?
     
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  10. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yes, of course you can. You COULD also make a quick note of the better idea so you don't forget it and keep going, making the changes to your ongoing story that the better idea has generated. It will be easy to change the beginning to incorporate the better idea later on.

    But what if you come up with an even better idea tomorrow? And then decide the next day that the first idea was better? Then the day after that you come up with an idea that's even better than all of them so far? Then the next day you decide the story sucks and you should start over—rinse, repeat ...you really need to break loose from that pattern, don't you?

    Any method of working is fine, as long as you get to 'The End' eventually. But if you only keep reaching the end of Chapter Three and going back to perfect everything, or chasing new ideas every day and starting over—and you never get beyond Chapter Three—then I think you have a problem.
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2019
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  11. DueNorth

    DueNorth Senior Member

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    One of the most helpful pieces of advice I’ve heard is this (sorry that I can’t quote the source): “A first draft is the writer telling the story to themselves.”

    My own process is to write from a very rough plot outline that has “suspense points” and plot twists and highlights. Each time I sit down to write I begin by reading and generally revising what I wrote the day before. My revisions involve enhancing descriptions of scene, characters,and action, choosing stronger words (often more active verbs), and making dialogue tags more interesting. Sometimes all I get to is revising the writing from the day before, but before I proceed, I have what I would consider “2nd draft.” Before I allow anyone to read it—like my writer’s group or a writer friend, I revise it a third time or even fourth time. Following any feedback, I revise again and might delete or add sentences, paragraphs, or more.

    I agree with others who have encouraged you to get the story down—then go back and revise. I am a firm believer that the art of writing is in revision. You are like a sculptor who starts with a block of clay (the basic story), then mold it and carefully etch detail with each revision — but you have to get that story out in order to mold it!
     
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  12. DK3654

    DK3654 Almost a Productive Member of Society Contributor

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    I think I usually write attempting to make a reasonably well done first draft.
    I guess I'm not particularly comfortable writing until I have a good idea what I want to do. I don't think I would have made as much progress with my WIP story if I hadn't spent so long just concepting and making notes casually before I decided to actually give writing it out properly a go. And even now, I've been taking my time deliberating over it well before I'm even half way through the wordcount.
    That said, you never know how close your first draft will be to the final, and sometimes it's best to just write something first in order to help you figure out what you want to do with a scene, plotpoint, character ect.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2019
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  13. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    So, how many of you edited your responses to this thread before posting them?
     
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  14. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I'm very guilty of posting first, editing later. To the extent that people quote my post, and by that time I've already changed it! I have a very trigger-happy 'post reply' finger. :eek:
     
  15. DK3654

    DK3654 Almost a Productive Member of Society Contributor

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    You stop that!
     
  16. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    Okay then, How many of you should have edited first?
     
  17. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Edit first, if you will. But then post it. It's people who never get to the post-it stage that need to worry about premature perfectionism. :)
     
  18. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    Okay then, Hhow many of you should have edited first?
     
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  19. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    :)
     
  20. Partridge

    Partridge Senior Member

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    Think of something better soon after writing that scene? I use the "notes" function on Pages (Pages is apple's answer to Word, I don't know if Word has a similar feature). It basically means when I go back and do the next draft, I've got a little reminder from myself in the margin. My second and third draft was built with notes...
     
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  21. Intangible Girl

    Intangible Girl Senior Member

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    For me, doing several years of Nanowrimo was a good way to learn how to chain up my inner editor and just write without worrying about perfection. My only concession to perfection now is that my first draft is meticulously spelled and punctuated. It's crap, but it's legible crap. I just get too distracted if it isn't. Plus, clean copy means the problems in the prose are easier to see.
    @DueNorth I think it was Stephen King.

    @GrahamLewis All the time every time. I think 'Oh, I'll just jot down a quick response,' and then half an hour later...
     
  22. Ruckus

    Ruckus Banned

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    My first drafts are a mad dash of throwing everything I have at the pages and then reducing and refining it all down on the second draft. But latly I have been asking myself if I should try a diffrent way. I wonder if it would benifit me more as a writer to at least attempt to write a cleaner first draft (what ever this takes). this might slow me down but I think it would also, in the long run, push me to be a better writer.
     
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  23. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    It depends on the writer. I edit as I go. I won't say I always finish a story, but it's probably close to 90% of the time. I have a few stories that were 4000-5000 words when I dropped them, but that was mostly because they were getting carried away and running long. I may pick them up again some day. So those aren't a total loss or anything. I just consider them an exercise and save them.

    My reasoning for editing works in progress is that I always have the big idea in place but I need the details to continue, and sometimes those have to be drawn out. I need the details in scene one to shape scene two, which then pushes scene three even farther in another direction. Butterfly Effect? But let's say the Emperor of Earth passed an edict that I was no longer able to write that way, I'd still manage. I'd just detail my outline more. I consider that my zero-draft anyway.
     
  24. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I like to fix little things as I go along, but if I'm making a big shift in something, I'll make a note in the text at the point I make the decision to change things and everything after that point I'll write as if the change has been made, but I won't go back and change the earlier stuff until I'm done.

    Like, in my WIP I've decided one of the characters needs to have a deeper character flaw from the start, so I've made a note saying "from here on, Paul subservient to family" and I'll write everything from now on with that understanding of his character. Then I'll go back and change the first part of the novel later.

    So, little changes, as I go. Bigger changes? hybrid approach.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2019
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  25. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Nanowrimo is not something I've tried, but that's a great idea. A one-month deadline could give a boost to people who tinker constantly with what they've already written, rather than moving on.
     

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