Rewrites

[Kaellpae]

How many rewrites does it take you to have a story where you want it to be?

 

[Map the Dragon]

This really depends; do you just mean 'story' or ANY narrative...like a novel? For a short story, I edit/rewrite/revise far fewer times than I did with my novel. A typical (not that I have a ton or anything) short story involves perhaps half a dozen 'go-overs' before I think it's ready. Double or triple that for the novel, and that still doesn't count the efforts of the publishing house/editor.

My buddy and partner in writing crime told me that at some point, you just have to be ok with it and know that it is what it is.

 

[Kaellpae]

Short story or novel, whichever one. When you rewrite it, do you just read through, adding and deleting what you think it needs, or do you physically rewrite it and fix it as you go along?

 

[Kaellpae]

I've only done very short narratives, mostly to help me to evolve my ideas a bit more in my head, or to hash out a character. I wrote part of a story about 5 years ago on Writing.com, I believe it's still there. For everything I've written it's all been the rough draft that I share. I don't expect the best of feedback from people with that stuff, but I've heard a few good things about my story on Writing.com. I may do a revision and rewrite on that one and post it here. I believe I called it Calvin's Story, and it just introduced Calvin and who he was and where he was in life. I don't even remember if I liked it or not. Ahah.

 

[Argentum]

Back when I was a young teen, I wrote like six or seven books. When I wanted to turn them into something, I had to rewrite the entire thing. I've done that for multiple books. And because you rewrote the first one, as the others are sequels, there was just too much changed and you have to rewrite those as well. I guess I can't tell you either how many it takes to make a good book finished. I edit forever, but rewriting something doesn't happen too often. Occasionally I'll find a section that needs major work and to be rewritten or parts that need to be added, but once you do all the dirty work needed, the rest is usually just editing or adjusting a little as you go along.

 

[Map the Dragon]

I have never actually "rewritten" anything. I've changed things, deleted things, added things, edited, and more, but never rewritten; I've always worked with my existing text, regarding it as a raw piece of steel that needs to be folded and hammered into art.

 

[Kaellpae]

That's a load off my mind. For some reason when I thought of revising and rewriting I always thought it was supposed to be completely rewritten. It still won't be my favorite part of the process though.

 

[Map the Dragon]

Just don't be afraid to chuck entire sections and get rid of loads of words. In my novel, before publication, we ditched about 10000 words out of 140000ish, then added another 3-4000 in missing elements.