posted
I’ve learned quiet a bit about writing in the last year.
But then I worry. One of my best short stories was one I wrote before all that stuff I learned, done in a single sitting, it just flowed out naturally without worry about overloading adverbs, adjectives, to-be verbs, ect...
It’s not I who judge it best, it just seems it’s gotten the best response on Critters. Better than my WIP novel that I worked and revised and revised and revised which is my main concern. The short story is not perfect of course. I do need to implement another revision. But compared to other short stories and my novel that I’ve written and rewritten since I’ve theoretically learned stuff, it doesn’t get the same positive response. If anything it seems I did better a year ago…
Now I worry over every word. In the end it comes out stilted and unnatural. Though it does seem my working novel is getting smoother as time goes by.
Seriously, stop worrying about them. You can't write if you have to obsess over every word. The story can't come through and neither can the emotional contact.
When you EDIT worry about the words. Go back through and flag overuse of adjectives, to be, adverbs, etc. But even then don't get on a high-horse like some people I've known and try go cut every single one. Heck, in a critique I once had someone flag every instance of a adverb and every instance of to be in my entire story, including the ones in dialogue! When I pointed out that some of the ones she flagged were in dialogue she said they should still be cut. I henceforth ignored everything she said and have never given her another story to critique.
In short, don't worry about it, just write it. When you edit, worry a little but don't drive yourself nuts with it.
posted
It's because you're revising... don't do it! Constantly second-guessing every element of your style will only serve to make it just as you've described, stilted and unnatural. What you're doing is destroying your natural voice when you constantly mess around with your sentence structure and word choice and try to get it "just right". Fact is, most of the time, it was "just right" the first time you wrote it.
That's not to say you can't revise, however. If you're reading over your work and a sentence strikes you as jarringly bad, then of course you should fix it. But you shouldn't sit there and look for ways you can make every paragraph better. That's not what good writing is about.
This is a common mistake and I've made it myself many times. It's easy to think you can somehow improve a piece of work by fiddling around with it this way, when style isn't even nearly as important as your story itself.
posted
and here i am. i've ALWAYS revised as i wrote, and i still do. it doesn't kill my style or my flow, but then, that's because i'm accustomed to doing it, i guess you could say it is part of my style.
HOWEVER! i do not AGONIZE over every word, that is just stupid and begging to cripple your story.
posted
In counterpoint to the statements expressed above, I'd like to share a story I heard about one of the English languages greatest authors:
Frank Budgen once asked James Joyce how he was progressing on "Ulysses." Joyce replied that he had been working hard all day. Budgen said "Then you've written a great deal?" Joyce said, "I have seven words comprising a whole sentence." Budgen said, "Seven words? That's a lot for you." Joyce replied, "Yes, it is. But now I can't figure out the order in which they belong."
posted
I have been having a real problem with revising every little detail as well lately. I've found it to be a serious hindrance on my writing and at times it even effects the direction of some of my stories. I know that has to sound ridiculous but it's true. I'll write for a few hours and feel good about how I'm telling the story and then question every line and wonder if my ideas are getting across at all. I won't even mention my grammar issues.
Posts: 15 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I think this is a fairly common problem, and one that I can definitely relate to. One of the best (if not the best) stories I've written was almost a year ago now, and I, like you, feel like I have learned a lot since then. When it comes to the basic structure of the story, as well as the more tedious things, like proper punctuation and grammar, I know I am light years from where I was. And yet... Might be worthwhile trying ghost-writing exercises (if you haven't already). It's a good way of turning off that pesky internal editor, and helps you get into the habit of listening to your imagination, rather than just scrutinizing it to death.
Posts: 270 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:and here i am. i've ALWAYS revised as i wrote, and i still do. it doesn't kill my style or my flow, but then, that's because i'm accustomed to doing it, i guess you could say it is part of my style.
Ah, but if you're revising as you're writing, that's not really revision, is it? That's just part of the writing process. When it breaks the flow and messes up your natural voice is when you come back to the piece cold a day or a week later and start fiddling with perfectly fine sentence structure just because you think it could be better.
[This message has been edited by AeroB1033 (edited February 14, 2005).]
posted
I try to write first and revise later, but it doesn't work out that way. I write/revise, then later I revise. The revise part adds some stiltedness at times. What's a joy is just to let it come. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it does!
[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited February 15, 2005).]
posted
well, what would you call it aero? i don't just start writing and keep writing, rather, i examine each sentence as i write it and tinker with it just a little, to make sure my idea is coming across to me at the very least.
i consider that to be what is done in first revision, second revision is when you start worrying about what your readers see in the writing
quote:well, what would you call it aero? i don't just start writing and keep writing, rather, i examine each sentence as i write it and tinker with it just a little, to make sure my idea is coming across to me at the very least.
posted
True enough that it is all part of the writing process, but there are clear break points between writing, revising, and editing.
First of all, that first draft is written no matter what else you think you're doing. As long as your action is spewing forth new, additional words to an ongoing manuscript you are writing. YOu can think about those words to varying levels of distraction, but there it is.
You revise when you flag sections for problems such as discontinuity, lack of believability, or lack of description. This is not a sentence-level process. Wordsmithing falls under editing.
Editing is making sure the words are right. You check for typos that MS Word (or whatever) misses. You check for sentences that don't sound right. You check for passive voice. You check for repetitive structures. You check for repetitive words. You check for too many adverbs, adjectives, and "to be's." When you are finished editing, you should have a marketable product. I don't tend to show my manuscript to critiquers after a final edit because most of the helpful advice they can give me is for the revision phase of this operation, although I do make notes of stilted wording and typos if they are kind enough to point them out.
Not everyone does these three phases in this way or this order, but anytime you change a word that's misspelled you have edited and every time you remove a paragraph because you already gave the reader that information that's revising. You can try to do some of this while you write draft, but there is a key to the definitions of revising and editing that preclude actually being able to say that you're doing them while you're writing...revising and editing require an already completed mnauscript or at least an already completed section of that manuscript. (You can go back and revise chapter 1 while you're writing chapter 10.)
I've heard Card and others suggest that the first draft is the only draft. In boot camp, I went with this advice and turned in a story that I wrote first time through for critique by the group. While I did receive some useful comments, I think that a rewrite on my part would have helped immeasurably.
I guess I'm saying that I'm not clear on this one-draft writing approach. I think there's more to it than the writers who use it are letting on. I think, for example, that their "one" draft comes only after a lot of prep work or a lot of thinking about where the story is going. I also think that even people who use the one draft approroach end up revising and editing.
posted
I sure am dealing with this same problem right now. I've done four major revisions of the first chapter of my book (This doesn’t count the many, many times I’ve edited it to get each sentence perfect). Each revision has transformed it into an entirely new chapter. Although the basic jist of it has remained the same, the minor characters and flow of the story has changed drastically.
Frankly, it's driving me crazy! However, with the help of Critters.com I have been able to see the need for adjustments. If something bugs one person, it will probably bug a lot of other people.
The one problem I have with revisions is that most of them are spawned from comments from others. "Oh, you should do this or that." Many suggestions relate to gaps that can and should be filled in by the reader. Other suggestions consist of personal expectations of how a normal person would react to something (do I really want my characters to be normal?). The twenty non-writers that read and critiqued my book never mentioned that they were bothered by the things that the nine budding writers said were wrong with it.
So I have to ask myself: Am I writing for the reader who reads for the sake of enjoyment or for the writer who is trained to scrutinize everything? Sadly, I am writing for the writer/editor, since it is he/she who determines if the book will be published or not. Hence, the revisions.
Was it Ernest Hemingway who said that he was a horrible writer but a wonderful rewriter? No wonder he committed suicide. This is not fun stuff.
As for the “write it once method,” that’s how I like to write, and I thought I was pretty good at it, but Critters has shown me that there’s often room for improvement. For a story or for your 5th book, I can imagine rushing though the process, but I’m on my first book, and a lot is riding on its success.
Chris, I noticed that you have a story up on Critters.com. You did a great job critiquing my story. I’ll take a look at yours.
posted
You may be giving Critters (or crit-ers in general) too much credit. If one person thinks it, and I disagree, I ignore it. If MANY people think it, I consider it more strongly -- but I still may ignore it. Anyway, I think of published works. I thought Brin's Startide Rising was an edge-of-the-seat page turner. Someone else told me it was too tedious to read. People disagree.
I get the weirdest comments from Critters. Don't write about topic X; it's been done. Explain more. Explain less (same story). Don't use the term "Eskimo," it's offensive. Don't show a Christian worshiping Christ; it's offensive.
But at the same time, I use it, because sometimes they're right.
quote:I think there's more to it than the writers who use it are letting on. I think, for example, that their "one" draft comes only after a lot of prep work or a lot of thinking about where the story is going. I also think that even people who use the one draft approroach end up revising and editing.
I tend to write one draft with many revisions to clarify motivation and prose. It doesn't always happen that way... when I'm in a hurry, I tend to just write whatever comes to mind. (I pay for it by making dramatic changes later.) But I've noticed that if I work the general plot and key scenes out in my head, with notes for specific things to remember, I only need to write one draft. I work on phrasing as I go along.
With my novel, I tried writing more than one draft. Didn't work, mostly because I don't have the time for more than one draft. Figuring it out in my head while I work is a lot easier.
posted
Nearly every story I've ever sent out for critiques has been first draft (technically or semantically, I suppose), except where I noted it was a rewrite or final draft.
While working the first draft, after I'm finished with the day's progress, I go back and read over what I've written and tidy up anything that seems horribly amiss. Often this is cutting out huge chunks of unnecessary exposition and pasting those bits into a separte file -- just in case I need to refer to them later on or put them back in a better place. But essentially, what I've written is what gets critiqued. Final drafts are the rewrites I generally keep to myself -- story finished.
If after the rewrite (2nd time through) it's still in bad shape, it sits on my hard drive collecting binary dust, never to see the light of day; never again will it light up the RGB pixels on my monitor... waiting perhaps to be completely rewritten from scratch. For me, going through more than twice will ruin everything I did. It may not have been great the first few times around, but it will definitely suffer more if I tweak it to death.
So, to avoid this tweak-to-death syndrome: After the first draft and the critiques, I will let the story and associated feedback stew in limbo for at least a month, maybe two. Then, and only then, will I attempt to rewrite it. (Unless it's a really short thing like the Flashquake contest, then I'll hammer on that right away.)
For me, this is the only way I can objectively tackle a rewrite. Fresh eyes -- that kind of thing. As I'm rewriting, the feedback that was given to me should pop back in to my head. If it doesn't, I must not have agreed with the comment. After I'm done, I pull out all of the critiques just in case I missed something I did agree with -- usually doesn't happen; good changes/suggestions resonate deeply and aren't easily forgotten.
Anyway, that's my approach. It works for me so far.
posted
I think perhaps the problem is in the definitions we are using for "first draft", "second draft", etc.
My usual habit is to sit down and write what I have straight through to the end, which may or may not be the end I acutally use. This then sets for anywhere from 24 hours to 24 years, or until the shine is off the apple so to speak.
Then I'll go through it and add dialogue and descriptions as necessary and fix any logic holes and sloppy sentences I find. I consider that my second draft.
Then I go through and tweek and cut. I consider that my third draft.
After that, if I read it over and find one word that needs changing and make that change, I consider it a new draft. I save each one separate from those before it, labelling: Treesv1, Treesv2, Treesv3, etc. That way if I decide I'm hopelessly lost, I can go back to an earlier point before I messed up and start over.
It's not uncommon to have a large number of drafts. It is also not uncommon to have a draft in the process of revision laying around with scrawled notes for several weeks before I think I've finally 'got it.' (I'm not sure yet what 'it' is. But when I get 'it' I'll let you know.) Eventually, when the notes fill the margins and the backs of the sheets, I retype.
posted
I recently wrote a 2 part story (Yes, erotica.) Part 1 was very well received and part 2 just didn't go over as well.
I wrote part 1 very quickly. It was part of a writing exihibition. The draft that was submitted to the exhibition and the final draft were pretty close, with the exception of one part added and slightly more fleshed out.
I labored over part 2 because of all the great feedback over part 1. I wrote it and rewrote it and while I was writing it read up on a lot of writing advice.
What do I think I did wrong? The #1 thing was that the "Voice" of 1 and 2 were very different from one another - too different.
I think another issue is I needed to be clear on what I wanted to accomplish with the various drafts.
Our sensibilities are different from one day to another and if each draft because too much of a re-write, rather than minor corrections and tweaking, it becomes very easy to lose the voice.
I still believe in heeding good writing advice and still believe in taking care but I think that you never let theses things cloud your creativity.
Too many rules and too much thinking can destroy the qualities that people enjoy about our works.
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