Is it really done?

[Devora]

I've noticed with some of my stories that even if i finish a section of story I always seem to think of something else for the scene a few more scenes in.

Does this happen to you? How often?

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Yes...constantly.

Take notes...jot them down under the completed scene for revision & move on. That's my advice. Get to it after you've completed the first draft. Otherwise you're going to lengthen your creation process by spinning your wheels unnecessarily.

 

[ThinkerX]

It gets to be even more fun when you set the work in question aside for a month, go back, take a look, and spot all the plot holes and logical inconsistencies which need to be patched in the supposedly completed scenes.

With one of my works I had to write in a pirate attack to justify the MC's ship calling at port A rather than his intended destination of Port B.

 

[skip.knox]

What T.Allen.Smith said. Sidecar the puppy. When I used Word, I kept a "fragments.doc" file. Now I keep a Fragments folder in Scrivener. Even when I cut a scene, I don't throw it out, I throw it in the Fragments pile. If the pile gets too big, I subdivide by sections of the story.

This lets me be a little more ruthless. I'll cut stuff, knowing that I can dig out an earlier version.

What'd really be spiffy is a writer's version of Subversion (archiving program for software developers). I'd love to be able to have branches and tags for a story. There has actually been a fair amount of discussion on the subject, but alas it appears to be much more difficult to track storytelling that it is to track code.

 

[TheokinsJ]

I sometimes rewrite scenes multiple times, but usually that only happens if I really can't decide on an idea. As the other members have said, write the ideas down, store them away for another scene or story, and keep writing. Any minor changes can be made at the end, otherwise if they impact the plot significantly, write both and then choose, that's usually how I go about it.

 

[Anders Ämting]

I've noticed with some of my stories that even if i finish a section of story I always seem to think of something else for the scene a few more scenes in.

Does this happen to you? How often?

What's "something else", exactly?

I mean, are we just talking cosmetic changes or do you actually add substantial content to the story?

 

[Motley]

Definitely!

To me, that's the natural progression of writing something. My first draft is a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of thing flowing out of me. I always have to rewrite pretty much completely to get the real story in after I'm done.

 

[Addison]

Oh jeez, too often. You finish that scene that's been begging to be written, five minutes later you go back and either add more or write more scenes or who knows what.

But that's how writing is. It grows, it adds, it rarely shrinks and subtracts.

 

[Asura Levi]

Well, same goes for me, in substancial changes.
Recently the MC group encounter with a foreign soldier while on the forest. This soldier is badly wounded and is taken captive by the MC.

Then, I rewrote all because they encounter a dying foreign soldier, and a side character using necromancy to adquire some information that otherwise would be lost seemed better. Now, a simple soldier who once was just a kind of hook became a spy who was taking an import message with him... and the adventure begins...

As much as this second version seems better, it is annoying the sheer number of times I want to change something substancial because I thought of something better.

 

[Penpilot]

What'd really be spiffy is a writer's version of Subversion (archiving program for software developers). I'd love to be able to have branches and tags for a story. There has actually been a fair amount of discussion on the subject, but alas it appears to be much more difficult to track storytelling that it is to track code.

I use Scrivener's text snapshot function to version my stories and novels. You can look at and compare old versions with new and can revert back when necessary. You can name your snapshots and the snapshots are dated. The way I organize things is before I do a major draft pass I take a snapshot off all my scenes and name them something like Draft-03, so I know that all those scene versions belong together and I consider them collectively as a stable build.

 

[Devora]

What's "something else", exactly?

I mean, are we just talking cosmetic changes or do you actually add substantial content to the story?

Ideas of any kind ranging from a small sentence to whole section of story.

 

[skip.knox]

I use Scrivener's text snapshot function to version my stories and novels. You can look at and compare old versions with new and can revert back when necessary. You can name your snapshots and the snapshots are dated. The way I organize things is before I do a major draft pass I take a snapshot off all my scenes and name them something like Draft-03, so I know that all those scene versions belong together and I consider them collectively as a stable build.

Yup., I'm a recent convert to Scrivener myself, so I have not made extensive use of snapshot yet. I have a couple but have yet to need them.

I guess it's the diff function and the merge that'd be handy, and that's exactly where things get I really do think that Scrivener's snapshot is as close as we'll get. Writing fiction is way harder than writing code, with due respect to all my fellow coders.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Ideas of any kind ranging from a small sentence to whole section of story.

Well, if you are a write-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of writer, I expect that's how writing should work for you. I can't imagine writing a story like that without going back and doing heavy editing.

Though, if you consider this an actual problem that gets in the way of finishing your story, I'd recommend spending more time planning ahead. I personally find that this gives any idea that comes in late a chance to catch up with the rest. I also advice you to be selective about your ideas - having a lot of them is not a necessarily good thing; you want to single out the ones that genuinely contribute to your core concept. Creativity is great, but so is focus.