Killing off more writing myths

[T.Allen.Smith]

Short stories have their own unique challenges. Brevity alone can be an issue, but they don't suffer from the complexity of several interwoven plots & characters.

There are writers capable of submitting a manuscript as soon as they type "The End". I'm not one of them. In revision I make small changes to the actual wording. Most of the editing process is devoted to enriching setting, characterization through dialogue differentiation, tidying up plot through cutting or further developing ideas as they progress, things of this nature.

 

[gavintonks]

If you hear how many times Lord of the rings was edited by Tolkien's son I doubt there are many one write manuscripts that are supremely successful

 

[Steerpike]

If you hear how many times Lord of the rings was edited by Tolkien's son I doubt there are many one write manuscripts that are supremely successful

Heinlein had a bunch of them, unless he was lying about his process. There's no reason a first draft can't be successful if that's how a writer produces her work. As people have said, each writer has to go with what works.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Vonnegut wrote one draft for each work he put out (or so he said). I think he'd qualify as a success.

Certainly that's not the norm though.

 

[gavintonks]

The writer also does not say whether the manuscript was edited which is more than likely so professing a first draft and giving it to editors would be more plausible.
What we forget is the word constraints in lithographic printing, which means odd and even pages for publication so here would see an edit to fit the printing requirements

 

[Ghost]

I'm confused. Is he talking about rewriting and revision as the same thing? All of my stories need revision but few of them need rewrites.

I agree with the "every writer is different" sentiment. Look at all advice and see what applies to your particular situation. I'd recommend trying new things if what you're doing isn't working, but you don't have to do anything.

There is advice that helps many writers. That doesn't mean it works for all of us. People say things like:

• Revise, revise, revise
• First draft - 10% = second draft
• Show, don't tell
• No adverbs
• No prologues
• Don't use clichés
• Outline

There are reasons these "rules" are given so freely. They point to problems new writers might not be aware of. I don't look at advice as laws, more like a heads up. After all, someone can write a wordy, telly novel full of adverbs and clichés and become a bestselling author. There are as many ways to write a book as there are writers, and the same writer might employ methods for different books.

Smith says every writer is different and follows it with "So how come rewriting makes stories worse instead of better?" I'm not sure that works. I agree that endlessly tinkering with a work is often harmful to its integrity, but revising something doesn't inherently make it worse. If someone is bad at revising/rewriting, well, that is a whole other issue.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I was going to post a lengthy diatribe here but decided to make it a blog post instead. I love writing fiction but it's hard coming up with blog topics when I don't actually have a career to blog about yet.

 

[danr62]

Revising, editing, and rewriting are three different things. I just wish I knew the difference.

Actually, I think editing has to do with grammar, spelling and typos. Revising is about tightening up sentences and improving the prose. Rewriting is about fixing characterization, plot and other story level fixes.

I think that's about right, anyway.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Revising, editing, and rewriting are three different things. I just wish I knew the difference.

Actually, I think editing has to do with grammar, spelling and typos. Revising is about tightening up sentences and improving the prose. Rewriting is about fixing characterization, plot and other story level fixes.

I think that's about right, anyway.

There may be different or more precise lingo within the industry (that is, the traditonal publishing industry, or "TPI," which sounds like some kind of medical disorder), but I use those three terms the same way you do.

 

[shangrila]

In that context, yeah, the really talented writers could probably get away without doing a complete rewrite. But I highly doubt it's what the majority do nor, in my opinion, is it something that people should just discard as more work or something.

Almost everything will get better the more you do it and that (again, in my opinion) involves your stories as well. You can easily miss a bit of information here or there while writing a novel, or find that the character you had in mind doesn't fit the story you want to tell.

I'm not saying you have to do rewrites either but, to me, putting out a first draft with basic editing and expecting it to be good would require a lot of pieces to fall in the right places.

 

[JCFarnham]

The idea that for a piece of writing to be good, one needs to slave over it is a very good point. I'll be honest I must have wrote the first two or three chapters of my scifi novel in about the same number of days during NaNoWriMo. The content hasn't changed one bit, those first chapters are still more of less the same (excluding a good edit of grammer, etc.) So yeah, I agree with Dean Smith, especially since in the case of those chapters I've just "signed them over" as final draft material.

If you're worrying about what Smith is saying thinking "yeah, but that's a bit..." then try delving deeper into his meaning. The language stumped me a few times but the deeper meaning is a good one.

 

[Amanita]

His comments are definitely interesting and thought-worthy. I might not agree with everything 100% but if I remember correctly, this is one of his points, not everything does aply to every author.
Fretting over supposedly firm "rules" rather than writing in your own voice seems to be a bit of a problem I've been observing especially on websites.
I really don't understand the general dislike for prologues for example, especially seeing this while almost all fantasy books I've read do use prologues and I can think of anyone which spoiled a good story for me. In a recent book I had a very well-done example hinting at things only clear at the end of the four book series and still an interesting little story of its own.
The most popular works such as Harry Potter, Twilight, or presumably "Shades of Gray" which failed to attract my interest all break plenty of rules supposedly so important but the authors still succed in doing the most important thing: Making plenty of people care about their characters and stories. (And making plenty of money too if you see this as an important thing. )

 

[JonSnow]

I reread every chapter after I write it, and "edit" it by removing excess words, re-wording certain parts, and correcting grammar. I don't consider this "revising", as it is a simple process of putting legible work on paper. After I have gone over the work a couple times and cleaned up the basic problems, I would consider that a "first draft".

Anybody who says they just write and leave it alone is full of crap. Even if your writing is crisp and doesn't need much revision, you're crazy not to at least go back over and do a basic edit before moving on. Even if you write the whole story before you go back to edit, I would consider the "First Draft" the product after you edited the original text for errors at least once.

 

[JonSnow]

I guess there are a few authors who could take a dump on a sheet of paper and readers would revere them for it, so my post wouldn't apply to them. Most of us don't have that luxury.

 

[Steerpike]

Anybody who says they just write and leave it alone is full of crap.

Not everyone who doesn't use the same process you use is full of crap for saying they don't use it. That strikes me as a rather foolish thing to say, especially since your statement is all-inclusive and you can't possibly know the writing habits of every writer. I don't know why so many writers have this same sort of insecurity which doesn't allow for the fact that others may operate different, and expresses itself in this sort of comment.

 

[BWFoster78]

Not everyone who doesn't use the same process you use is full of crap for saying they don't use it. That strikes me as a rather foolish thing to say, especially since your statement is all-inclusive and you can't possibly know the writing habits of every writer. I don't know why so many writers have this same sort of insecurity which doesn't allow for the fact that others may operate different, and expresses itself in this sort of comment.

I agree with this completely. There are as many variations in technique as there are writers.

If you're like me, your first draft is word vomit designed just to get something down that you can work with in the editing process. However, there's no reason you can't take the exact opposite approach. If you take the time to really think about and outline your scene, why would you need to go back over it as long as you took care with each sentence you wrote?

 

[Philip Overby]

I think there are more writers than we all think who just write whatever comes to mind and then get it published. It's not completely unfeasible. Unlikely, if you're a novice, but not unheard of. I myself do very little editing on short stories. Novels are a bit different. I tend to lean towards "beefing up" instead of "cutting" so that's usually how I use editing. I want to make scenes pop more some way or another. I think some may equate editing with cutting, but I think it's just a tool for you to make the best possible story. If your best possible story is written in one draft, then more power to you!

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

There are probably some professional authors who work out the story in advance, and then only do one draft of the prose because they're extremely practiced at it—someone like Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen strikes me as possibly working in this mold. (Once you've had twenty or thirty novels published, you might well be able to generate good prose on your first try.) I think even in this case it doesn't mean you never ever use the Backspace key; just that you might write a paragraph, revise it right then and there, and then move on, never to go back and touch it again.

But they're almost certainly a tiny minority of writers, and it doesn't make sense to try to emulate that if it doesn't work for you. So far my method isn't remotely close to this; I tend to vomit out a first draft and then go back over it and analyze it bit by bit, sometimes rewriting entire chunks. I actually am trying to work more toward a "story first" style, since the story's the important (and much more difficult) part. For me, at least, the prose is easy.

 

[ALB2012]

I tend to have to go back over things sometime after. I get what I want down on paper and often it changes as I write. I may realise something I had planned doesn't work or come out how I want and then I have to go and fix earlier references. I often don't spot my typos the first time (or even second) or decide I can rephrase something, or even remove it.

Often I will move on to something else and then look over it again but I think everyone is different. Some people can work through things in their head or spend a month per chapter some people write loads then go and clean it up after. Often I will write a scene to get it out of my head and either keep it or work it in later. There is no right and wrong but what works for the writer.

 

[ALB2012]

Oh and I have seen published stuff where the author has obviously just written it and published it and not bothered to edit