When to Rewrite?

[writeshiek33]

this question most likely been asked before . i am finishing very rough draft of first chapter of my book. it takes me more time get my writing down on screen/paper than most folks that why i am asking. When would be best time to start rewrites immediately of the first chapter or continue with rest of book in very rough draft?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

this question most likely been asked before . i am finishing very rough draft of first chapter of my book. it takes me more time get my writing down on screen/paper than most folks that why i am asking. When would be best time to start rewrites immediately of the first chapter or continue with rest of book in very rough draft?

Probably better to keep going. You can't really do a good edit/revision of something right after writing it, and you don't want to get stuck on the beginning. If there are big problems with the first chapter that will cause problems later in the story, though, you'll want to fix those.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

The standard is to keep on going, but it's not necessarily for everyone. It really depends on how solid your basis in the story is. If you're pantsing, absolutely keep writing until you find the end. If you know 100% this is how your story goes, you could do something like I did, write 100+ pages and fine tune that over time (take long breaks, rewrite, long break, rewrite, until you think your writing is solid enough) and when satisfied with your writing, then plow into finishing it. Basically, being a word freak, I wanted my prose to at least be close to satisfying me before I put down a 4-500 page book, heh heh.

But I've also a bit of a writing background, so this depends a lot on where you are at.

95% you should keep plugging on to the end, heh heh. Of course, I also believe in quick edits and rereads of what I've written previously pretty much every day. That's how I prime my brain for writing and particular voices in POV.

 

[Malik]

95% you should keep plugging on to the end, heh heh. Of course, I also believe in quick edits and rereads of what I've written previously pretty much every day. That's how I prime my brain for writing and particular voices in POV.

This.

I do it this way, too. I go back every few pages and refine, and then take a running start at the next section. It's exhausting -- it feels like smashing through walls all day -- but it's hard for me to get psyched up when I have to slog through pedestrian writing. This is not for everyone, though. You have to know your story and your plot. A lot of the time, before I go back -- and every time I stop, no matter what -- I'll put an all-caps description of what's next: "PUT THE BIG FIGHT RIGHT HERE," or whatever, so that I can flow right into it.

 

[Penpilot]

Generally, you should finish before editing. Why?

Let's say you're half way finished your book. You go back and polish that first few chapters till they're perfect. Then, when you go to finish the last half you realise you forgot something key or inspiration struck and you now have something awesome that you now want to put in that will take your story to another level.

But in order for this stuff to make sense, you have to tear apart those precious first few chapters or even throw them out. Now all that editing and polishing you did to those chapters becomes wasted time at least in part.

If instead, you finished, all the while taking notes on what you wanted to edit in the beginning, you won't have wasted that time. Not to mention, the more effort you put into those first few chapters, the harder it will be for you to throw them away. This can lead to mistakes like trying to twist and bend a story so you don't have to throw something out, and that's asking for trouble.

 

[La Volpe]

I'm with PenPilot on this one. I like keeping my story as rough as possible until I'm sure there won't be big changes anymore. Otherwise I get a kind of sunken-cost fallacy where I'm warping the story to fit into the mould that I've already cast, instead of changing it into something better. I still do this, even with the rough draft, but a lot less than when I'd already polished the first chapters.

 

[TWErvin2]

As has been indicated, I am not sure there is a 'right' answer.

Here is what I generally do, which might work for you (in some modified form).

When I sit down to add new words to my first draft, I re-read what I wrote the last writing session, where I allow myself to make some corrections--typos, wording, punctuation, etc. This accomplishes three things:
1. It gets me back into the story, to pick up where I left off.
2. It improves the first draft, some of the wording and dialogue.
3. It catches minor errors like missing quotes or a your vs. you're.

In the end, when I go back to revise/edit the second draft, I have a better copy to work with, especially since my writing is more consistent, having gotten back into the storyline directly (see #1).

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I'm going to guess a lot of the decision comes down, in part, to your attitude toward editing/rewrite. I can be obsessive when it comes to editing, I can go over something 20 times and toss it later, just because it isn't quite necessary and I'd like to save some length, or as recently, an editor suggested to cut down on a twisty sentence habit of mine, and so I did a complete read through looking for those, plus did searches for words I commonly used to start said sentences. Some people would groan and suffer through that, I just do it because I said "ohh, you're right!" and I wanted them gone.

If you hate editing, rewriting, killing your darlings, and other such things, then writing to the end is likely a good idea.

 

[ddmealing]

99% of the time you should finish the story rather than rewrite sections of a first draft. (And IMO, unless you've completed at *least* a couple books, you should treat this as pretty much 100%). It's absolutely critical to develop a habit of finishing your projects. It's more important to successfully reach The End on your first couple books than it is for those books to be any good at all!

That said, the 1% exception for me comes whenever I am dealing with character voice, especially within the first 2-3 POV chapters for a given character in the story. I'm a pure discovery writer, and when what I've written feels wrong it can create a domino effect that will ripple through the rest of the draft and create dozens of hours of work to fix. I will sometimes rewrite chapters five or six times until I've nailed the character's voice (and my current record for full rewrites on a single chapter is eighteen - yes, eighteen!!). This is *rare* though, and I didn't allow myself to rewrite ANYTHING during the first drafts of my first two books.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

I usually write on the subway on paper on the way to work in the morning. When I have completed a chapter I type it into my computer. Amidst the transfer I do a first edit of story line and sentence structure. I really like working this way as it lets me take a couple days mini break from being creative and writing more story, while still working on my novel.