For me, I have to go back and fix scenery, do research, realize that I changed a characters name later on from the very beginning, and much much more that I can't think of at the moment. Sometimes I wonder if it evens-out when you write a tad bit slower, a decent speed.

I think sometimes that writing as fast as you can not only keeps the momentum going, but it also keeps the action going and makes the writing experience more enjoyable and it makes your characters feel more alive. Don't neglect your characters for days at a time. Your characters, as I like to put it, have feelings too and they would appreciate it if you hangout with them in their world for an hour or two or three a day. =]

I am trying something on one of my projects. It happens to be one written many years ago, but I need to try this method on one I wrote out not to long ago.

I read somewhere that instead of heavy editing a piece, one should rewrite. Use what you wrote as a guide, but write it fresh.

What I am finding is that when I started with this piece doing heavy editing, I was struggled to work around the errors, and bad writing I had. By starting over, I am making major corrections with ease, adjusting the story based on what I already figured out, and taking more time on getting the story filled out and detailed. It is much better writing.

On the recent piece I did, It is 26,000 words and needs to be below 15,000 words. I need to rewrite it this way, to tell the story without all the fluff I had added when I wrote it the first time. Correcting the writing would not do it. I zapped the entire ending and it was still 20,000 words. That told me I needed to recreate the story without a lot of the side turns and twists and extra junk I have in it.

I must say, that no one writes the same. A friend of mine writes and edits as she goes, so when she gets to the end, she has a nearly completed piece.
When I write that way, I tend to get bogged down with polishing, rather than telling the story.
I tend to write by editing anyway. I will blast out a short piece to tell what the story is, and then fill in the details later as I expand the piece.

Try different styles of writing you see recommended here, and there, and see what works for you. Your writing my grow and change over time so might your methods.

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I have found what works best for me depends on the story I am telling. Sometimes I can blast through and then edit. Other times I need to rewrite from scratch and on occasion I can edit as I go. Really not sure what makes the difference.

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I have tried to break myself of the habit of editing as I go. However, it does very much depend on the story. Some stories are just "ripe" and tend to flow out very quickly (BLOOD WILL TELL, MAGE STORM). Others have to be coaxed (DREAMER'S ROSE). I find it makes a difference in the amount and kind of editing the stories need, too. Oddly enough, the ones that flow often need things added to them and, of course, a polishing edit, but the ones that have to be coaxed often need much more serious revision. Maybe they just weren't really ripe yet when I wrote them?

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Sometimes, when you feel that you've edited the story to death and dullness, the best thing to do is not only to rewrite it from scratch, but to rewrite it from scratch without referring to anything you've done before--in other words, to rewrite it from memory.

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I also hate the idea of rewriting or reworking things to death. I much prefer to have something close to 'good' at the end of my first draft. Though I don't mind killing 'darlings'.

Ultimately, NaNo taught me that I don't like to write like that.

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There are as many ways to do things as there are writers.

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I second what genevive42 has said, and would like to add that in some cases, there are more ways to do things because for some writers, the approach has to be different for each story.

"Sometimes, when you feel that you've edited the story to death and dullness, the best thing to do is not only to rewrite it from scratch, but to rewrite it from scratch without referring to anything you've done before--in other words, to rewrite it from memory."

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I agree with Kathleen. When I first wrote "Jealousy Kills"-which I have decided to name "WITHIN" for right now--back in February, it turned out to be an 18,000 word novella. A couple months later, I thought that I could do something different with it. I decided to combine another idea, this one failed, with WITHIN, and that novel, written in a month, ended at 83,000 words, and there were hardly any revisions I had to make in that one (that was very great for me. Not only did it turn out to be 50 times better than the original first draft, but I didn't have to change much). I think that rewriting from scratch an entire piece, now that I think about it, may look like it would take longer, but really it is probably faster than heavy editing. That would probably take too long. But as genevive42 said: there are as many ways to do things as there are writers.

And, as rstegman said: "Try different styles of writing you see recommended here, and there, and see what works for you. Your writing my grow and change over time so might your methods."
- I think I will try different styles of writing. I'll finish the project I'm working on now, and then I'll rewrite it from memory, like I did in WITHIN, rather than heavy edit it. It might turn out better that way.

And I think I will do that same thing with my first project "Eye of a Shadow" I ever finished, which I seriously had to set aside for awhile because my heavy editing and revising really wasn't cutting it. That one I should most deffinitely consider rewriting from scratch.

So far I'm liking this method. It allows me to avoid writing by editing when I get bored of the actual writing. Then, when I get bored of editing, I have the writing to fall back on.

Let's just hope I never get bored of both.

Meredith: I remember reading and critiquing a bit of The Shamans Curse a year and a half or so ago. My critique at the time was probably far too rigid, as I'd been reading dozens of 'rule' books at the time. Even so, I wanted to say that to this day I remember your story. That's a big deal, because quite frankly, there are many published stories that I cannot remember. Yet here I am, remembering yours.

My problem is when I write fast, I use the Main Character as my eyes. That's a problem for the main character because the reader ends up not connecting. That is a learning issue that needs to be improved.

It's really rewarding to see the work move this way and that way and, although I think some kind of outlining and worldbuilding ahead of time is best (because it allows me to write faster), you can still make discoveries in the prep work as well as in the writing. That's what I've learned with three novels planned.

I am redrafting (that's what I call redoing the whole novel from scratch) a previous work. It's been very hard to get excited about it, but I'm convinced it's a great idea. Writing fast, unfortunately, spoils you a bit when you have to do slower work.

I also think that writing at a medium pace is good. If you write semi-fast, then you are bound to have less to rewrite, if you decide to do "heavy editing"

I learned THAT with these last three short stories of mine that I've written. I wrote them slower than I write my novels, but there aren't as many rewrites I have to do for them, that I have to do for my novels. But then again, that could have something to do with novels themselves being much longer works, and the plot lines are usually more complex.

I could be wrong, but the longer the project, as I have learned, the faster it is that you naturally write it. At least, that's how it is for me anyway. The longer the projects, the faster I'm writing it. The shorter, the slower I write them... I question why that is.

I treat it like a job. A part time job, yes, but who can afford to go full time as a writer.

I do take sick days, and sick child days, and mental vacations sometimes( I hate you Bejeweled Blitz), but everyday, I am at my computer at the same time waiting for the muse to strike.

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Meredith: I remember reading and critiquing a bit of The Shamans Curse a year and a half or so ago. My critique at the time was probably far too rigid, as I'd been reading dozens of 'rule' books at the time. Even so, I wanted to say that to this day I remember your story. That's a big deal, because quite frankly, there are many published stories that I cannot remember. Yet here I am, remembering yours.

Clearly you have something in that story. That's not to say it doesn't need to be rewritten, I can't truly say, but I thought I'd throw you some encouragement.

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Writing as fast as you can has its ups and downs. Firstly, if you write as fast as you can, like I do, and whoop out 2,000 words in one sitting, then do another 2,000 words later on in another sitting, you get 4,000 words a day. 28,000 a week. And in three weeks, maybe four weeks, you get yourself a decent sized first draft of a novel. Maybe, say, 70,000 to 80,000 if your writing fantasy or adult or any other genre perhaps. This brings me to secondly: when you have finished, after writing as fast as you could to complete your novel, you're faced with the revisions (the second, third, fourth, or maybe even fifth drafts, and so on and so fourth). That takes Waaaaaaaaay longer than a first draft of a novel. At least it does for me, and I would imagine it does for everyone else, too.
For me, I have to go back and fix scenery, do research, realize that I changed a characters name later on from the very beginning, and much much more that I can't think of at the moment. Sometimes I wonder if it evens-out when you write a tad bit slower, a decent speed.

I think sometimes that writing as fast as you can not only keeps the momentum going, but it also keeps the action going and makes the writing experience more enjoyable and it makes your characters feel more alive. Don't neglect your characters for days at a time. Your characters, as I like to put it, have feelings too and they would appreciate it if you hangout with them in their world for an hour or two or three a day. =]

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I have heard of writers who have to go back and do all that no matter what speed they write at. Then there's others like me who put most of that in no matter how fast we go. Sometimes I have to correct a character's name or have to add something I had forgotten but that last has little to do with my speed. Of course there's all of what some call nitpicks but again that has little to do with speed. I can use wrong words or put in typos even while going slow. Of course I may not see as many of the ones make the faster I go but I still catch a whole lot as I'm typing. Not nearly enough, however.

I stop revising before five, even though I would do a couple, not counting checking the spelling and grammar. It's been about three years since I've written a novel and I have learned a lot about writing since then, even though I can't prove it by my writing, so I don't know for sure how many actually revisions I would do now.

I tend to do all that while writing the first time. Most of the time that is. Every now and then I can't after much thinking, come up with a good way to say something so I let it go until the revision.

But as to rather it's good way for you, you have to decide that. Would you have double checked the name of characters, fixed scenery etc. while writing the novel if you went slow ?

For me, I think, the revision would be either the same speed or slower then the actually writing.

I see what you are saying, and I didn't mention this in the post, but I too have gotten much better and I have learned a lot. I am much, much more careful now than I used to be with a characters name and scenery and research even. In my first book, Eye of a Shadow, that book was unbelievably long (over 200k, but in my opinion one of my best), my scenery of a Campus University was completely not how a campus is set up. I wrote that in the summer of my eleventh grade year of high school. I just graduated high school in June 2010. There were so many problems in that book, that I finally just had to take a break on all the heavy editing and revising in April this year. I revised and edited that book from September 2009 to April 2010, and, Oh wow, I just had to keep fixing more and more and more problems....... And it is still not even close to finish. Since I have more experience now, more than one year later, I am actually going to rewrite that book from scratch eventually.

It had been while I was learning more as a writer, so it was all just messed up at the time. That would best explain it anyway, I suppose.

Delli,

I used to be the same way. This one book, though, really helped me during my very first book last summer. It's called "Book in a Month." Without that book, I might not ever have finished my first novel, therefore not knowing what I do now in writing. But yes, even if you know a lot about writing, that book is very very inspirational and I think it could help every writer. I forgot who it's by, but it's got like an orange cover and it's by a doctor. PhD. Shmitz, I think, but that is probably spelled way wrong.

The main key is when you're writing is to not look back. At least, that is how I think of it. Others might, and probably will, have different opinions on the subject. I used to have a lot of writing negativity. I learned that if you just write fast, you can out run your negative outlooks and your inner negative thoughts, and you will surely finish your project. No matter how bad you think it is, just write it. You won't get anywhere if you just sit there and keep going back (well, you might get some done, but it would only be a matter of time before you thought it was all just crap). Just remember: when it is finished, you can always go back and rewrite it--whatever it was that you thought was terrible or just "bullocks", as you said.

Delli and XD3V0NX Remember that as writers we are usually the worse critics of our own work. Our inner critic likes to come out and play. Which is one reason some writers have a tendency to over revise and/or give up.

Along the same lines. I know people who thought a story was lousy but that story ended up selling where the one that they spent time revising and polishing because they thought it was great writing went nowhere. At the beginning we very rarely know what makes a good story good.

After 150 stories it's obvious that I don't know what good writing is, when it comes to my own, but many writers have a higher learning curve. Which means we need to keep learning but not to worry about getting it just right. Most writers will as they keep learning and practicing.

I used to over revise and/or give up, back with my first book, and that was because it was written by a writer who had little to no experience. Yes, when I wrote that, throughout the entire process, I thought it was terrible, most of the time, but I just kept on going with it. However, when you are writing a novel or a short story, and you think it's good, and then someone else (sometimes multpile people) reads it and gives you a critique, and they think it's good to, you are more likely to think even higher of it than what you had once thought. Therefore, if others think it is good, even though you already think it is good yourself, wouldn't you have more of a drive to finish it than something that you thought was lousy? It would only make sense, right?

It usually only GETS to writers when they get a critique that doesn't exactly satisfy them--or that was how it was with me--and then they start thinking it is terrible. Sometimes, for me, when I was in school, even when I got a good critique of my writing, I always thought that everyone was lying to me and my writing was terrible. It turned out, it never was bad. It just needed polishing, and I just needed to learn more. So that's what I did.

And yes, I agree with you about we writers being the worst critiques of our own work. That is true. But I also believe that, as writers, we CAN learn what people like and what they don't like. I am proof of that. I keep everything in mind that I ever learned from my critiques (I even save all my critiques and my reviews from my thirteen lines and query letters in a Word Document file) and reviews, and I try not doing the same problems again. I don't get AS MANY complaints, or heavy-problem infested critiques, as I used to get, and that is because I have learned what a majority of the people like and don't like through critiques and even reviews on hatrack. That was one of the main reasons I joined Hatrack.

Edited to add: if you don't want to bother with the virtual "post-it" notes, you can just put your note right in the text and set it off with a few characters you wouldn't use for anything else (like *** at the beginning and end) and that you can run a search for when you've finished the first draft.

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I agree and disagree with that, LDwriter2.
I used to over revise and/or give up, back with my first book, and that was because it was written by a writer who had little to no experience. Yes, when I wrote that, throughout the entire process, I thought it was terrible, most of the time, but I just kept on going with it. However, when you are writing a novel or a short story, and you think it's good, and then someone else (sometimes multpile people) reads it and gives you a critique, and they think it's good to, you are more likely to think even higher of it than what you had once thought. Therefore, if others think it is good, even though you already think it is good yourself, wouldn't you have more of a drive to finish it than something that you thought was lousy? It would only make sense, right?

It usually only GETS to writers when they get a critique that doesn't exactly satisfy them--or that was how it was with me--and then they start thinking it is terrible. Sometimes, for me, when I was in school, even when I got a good critique of my writing, I always thought that everyone was lying to me and my writing was terrible. It turned out, it never was bad. It just needed polishing, and I just needed to learn more. So that's what I did.

And yes, I agree with you about we writers being the worst critiques of our own work. That is true. But I also believe that, as writers, we CAN learn what people like and what they don't like. I am proof of that. I keep everything in mind that I ever learned from my critiques (I even save all my critiques and my reviews from my thirteen lines and query letters in a Word Document file) and reviews, and I try not doing the same problems again. I don't get AS MANY complaints, or heavy-problem infested critiques, as I used to get, and that is because I have learned what a majority of the people like and don't like through critiques and even reviews on hatrack. That was one of the main reasons I joined Hatrack.

And... I have a question, LDwriter2: why do you think or feel that after 150 stories you don't know what good writing is? I would think that after that many stories, which far exceeds how many I have written, that you would have gained the knowledge of what makes a good story, well, good.

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We all need to find the method that works for us. But when other people say it's good you're going by more than just your own opinion. That would be good to hear or read.

I agree that many writers get upset one way or another by bad reviews. Some feel bad enough to quit. But I also have known writers who almost always feel their stuff is bad even before anyone else critiques it...even after selling a couple of stories.

I think we should keep the reviews and go back over them to learn what we are doing wrong and what we are doing right. That is one method of learning.

I will answer your last question in another post, it might get a little long.

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And... I have a question, LDwriter2: why do you think or feel that after 150 stories you don't know what good writing is? I would think that after that many stories, which far exceeds how many I have written, that you would have gained the knowledge of what makes a good story, well, good.

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Basically it's because of circumstances. After five years I've had one sell and one comment by a pro editor. Three maybe four stories on the Honorable Mention level of WotF.

I have learned a few things over the years and even impressed two editors-one pro, one not so pro- with my determination but still can't even get close anymore.

I say anymore because three years ago I had a series of stories, eight to twelve, that showed improvement. That year I had three stories to one contest show improvement. One sold another would have sold but only one could get in and the third was close. Another story got a comment from John Jacob Adams over at Fantasy and Science Fiction at that time. That one and another reached the HM mark in two different WotF contests. Obviously they still needed a lot of work but at least the writing was better. Since then nothing.

I've been on Baen's Bar for over two years, after a lot of hard work one story would have been passed upward but they weren't buying at the time. No other stories have come close even after nine rewrites. Over a year ago one assistant editor told me that I kept making the same mistakes but I had no idea what those were. Since I've learned about making sentences active instead of passive and more about Show. Even after what I hope is a lot of improvement, I am not one of the people there who are told their writing is good.

Even though recently, for some reason I'm only partially sure about, I've been concentrating on Urban Fantasy and Space Opera, I've written about every type of SF and Fantasy except hard SF, streampunk and cyberpunk. Even though one or two stories are off beat enough to be some type of punk. I've seen two or three other types of punk listed but I have no idea what they are.