I’ve been doing a little research on first draft revision and getting many different answers. I realize no two writers will approach this from the same direction.

There seems to be two schools of thought on revision. One school of thought says you revise each chapter, get it letter perfect, and never go back to it for any reason. Another school of thought says you start on the first chapter, go though the whole book, and then do it all over again until you get sick of doing it. And there are other ways of approaching it, I am sure.

I would like to hear from some of you, on how you revise your first draft. I will have to pick the one I am most comfortable with in the end, but perhaps I can learn from the mistakes of others and avoid wasting time, or damaging the original writing style.

And speaking of style, I read one authors opinion on revision, and he said your first draft is-your-style. He said when you revise it and start removing/rewriting all your awkward sentences, you destroy your style.

If you don’t wish to discuss your method of revision, perhaps you can tell me what to avoid when revising a first draft.

Thanks
Azel

your first draft is-your-style. He said when you revise it and start removing/rewriting all your awkward sentences, you destroy your style.

I think it's daft to believe that polishing your work is making it worse or less authentic. That's an attitude I've heard associated with novices rather than professional writers, but it'll be interesting to hear if the published authors here agree with me.

You don't have to destroy your style at all when you rewrite or polish - you just improve things. Look at something and think "is it better this way or that way?". If the answer is the new way, then change it. If the answer is that the old way is better, then leave it unchanged.

And if your style (not yours, Azel, but someone's) is something which gets destroyed when you improve the work, then perhaps that's for the best...

I haven't reached the point of rewriting a whole novel, but I can think of a very good reason to rewrite and rewrite (even if the revisions become smaller each time, which hopefully they do) rather than rewrite one chapter and never touch it again: because until you've completely finalised the whole thing, how can you know you won't need to go back and change something else?

Deb

I think it’s utterly ridiculous to say that revising a first draft will destroy your style. Who said that? How on earth can he think that rewriting ‘awkward sentences’ is a bad thing? Man’s barmy! Harrumph!

Blimey, that touched a raw nerve, didn’t it? Like Deb, I suspect it was someone new to writing – either that or someone who has such a reputation no-one dares to tell him he’s no longer cutting the mustard with his raw and awkward style.

Anyway… I am the sort who polishes over and over again. I go through umpteen rewrites, all for different purposes. I go through looking for holes in the plot, bare bits that need fleshing out, lumpy bits that need trimming. I check for continuity, loose threads and punctuation. I go through checking that each thread is properly knitted in with the others and that it has its appropriate percentage of the whole story. I then laboriously read it word for word, checking for typos the spellchecker misses – form instead of from is my most common one. Then I search on every its and it’s because I'm neurotic about getting one wrong. Good job I enjoy the process!

Dee

Azel

i very recently ran a thread in the lounge called something like 'how do you approach a rewrite' - you might find it useful.

Casey

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It's on page 2 of the lounge

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I don't see how you can revise in terms of plot, subplot and character, by doing it chapter by chapter - you're always going to need to go back and tweak further as you get new ideas/inspiration.

I'm doing a re-write just now. By the time I had got to the end of the first draft I had changed a lot of things - as the characters evolved a life of their own their voices at the beginning were no longer consistent. Also the story had taken a life of its own and the start needed changes a lot to fit in. I'm takling all these big things first. Leaving in the stuff that fit's in with the plot and changing all the stuff that doesn't.

I've got a notebook full of little things I've thought about along the way that will have to be mentioned earlier, so I have to go through and put them in.

I've also taken a note of the reveals, step by step, and have to make sure they are drip fed in appropriate places to avoid a huge info dump - I have to make sure they are all in the right order!

Only after I've read through it and made sure that the voices are right, the threads are consistent and all the loose ends are tied up will I then sit down and look at each word to make sure it's in the right place. Also checking the rythm of the sentences and that the language is appropriate.

This is the first time I have ever got this far and I'm loving every minute. I found the first draft a really hard slog and I'm so enjoying tinkering with the nuts and bolts of the story.

This part is a pleasure rather than a pain - I feel I'm at last starting to get it to all come together.

Yes, I've occasionally come across writers who insist their first draft is perfect: it sounds arrogant, and it's born of deep fear and insecurity. And it results in weak writing.

I think it's worth taking notice of how your writing comes out in first draft: the shape, length and rhythm of setences, how much and what kind of description, and so on.

That's your 'style' - I prefer to think of it as your particular voice. And in revising you don't iron out that voice - applying crude rules about what's 'correct' or what's 'right' - you understand it and make it more characteristic, so that it all works harder.

You do keep an eye out for times when you need to vary it - my 'natural' sentence is long and quite syntactically complicated, and sometimes that's all wrong for the moment or the character. I also have a characteristic shape of sentence which comes in two halves, and if I have more than two running it starts putting the reader to sleep. But seeing those for what they are and working out what to do about it doesn't flatten my style, it just means my own voice gets across more successfully. (Well, I hope it does, anyway!)

Emma

I've occasionally come across writers who insist their first draft is perfect: it sounds arrogant, and it's born of deep fear and insecurity. And it results in weak writing.

i do think though, Emma, it can also come from ignorance. I've been convinced that my first draft is perfect ( i edit the writing as i go , but have felt it's fine regarding plot and character) and it's only getting my report that has made me realize the true role of a rewrite. I wonder how many new writers actually do considerable rewrites before sending out?

Casey

Yes, you're right, of course. But I think the insistence on it comes from insecurity. I think most beginner-writers, once someone they trust starts discussing how their first draft could be developed (which is the way I'd describe what I'd call re-writing to the battle-hardened veterans on WW) do understand what's meant - as you do with your report, Casey. We may not like it when someone says, 'It sags when the story goes wandering off with X instead of sticking to the point', but it makes sense, and we tackle the problem. It's the truly insecure ones who can't cope with the idea that it's not-good-enough-yet who insist - either explicitly or tacitly - that 'That's how I write,' because it's too threatening to comtemplate the alternative, that how-I-write has some flaws.

Emma

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Sorry, that sounds like I count you as a beginner-writer, Casey, which isn't what I meant at all!

I would certainly say before I joined WW I would have insisted that you just sat down and wrote a book !

I had never heard of first drafts and revising and threads and any of these things. I honestly thought all books were written in a oner. Just sit down, type out the story and hand it in. Previous stuff I've written I've never revised and it shows. (I am pleasantly surprised by some of it though)

However, since I didn't know what a "voice" or a "style" actually was I would have had no worries about losing mine.

Thank you Casey. I found many good ideas in your recent post, 'how do you approach a rewrite'. Also, thanks to everyone for your input.

A question. What am I looking at in time? If a first draft takes roughly a year to write, how long does the revision take? Assuming not much re-writing is necessary and only revision is required.

Here is a quote from Isaac Asimov.

‘The ordinary writer is always revising, always chopping and changing, always trying on different ways of expressing himself, and never being entirely satisfied. I rarely, if ever, worry about the sentences that reel out of my mind. If I have written them, I assume the chances are about twenty to one they are perfectly all right.’

Thank you
Azel

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Of course, I'm not Isaac Asimov. Perhaps he got it right the first time.

Azel

Isaac Asimov wrote drivel. Flaubert wrote masterpieces and it took him around five days to settle on a first line for Madame Bovary.


My edit's going to have taking me a third of the time it took to write the novel. So it might take you three months or so, all other things being equal?

I am sorry, Sammy, but I have to disagree. Since he is not here to defend himself, I will do my best to speak for him.

Mr. Asimov wrote poplar fiction or commercial fiction, not drivel and not literary fiction. He was a prolific writer who turned out hundreds of books, both fiction and nonfiction. I enjoyed many of his science fiction books when I was growing up. The most common complaint from his readers concerned his characters. They were called wooden. I still enjoyed reading his novels even if his characters were wooden. I enjoyed the robot series the most.

Regards
Azel

I'll second Sammy on the Asimov. Nothing short of fucking awful, his writing is simply attrocious.

I could look past that if the ideas were interesting enough but they really aren't. I, Robot for instance was anything but visionary.

Robots that can think and feel complex thoughts and emotions yet cannot speak? The logic doesn't follow. The world being perfectly run by supercomputers that are fed all the information they need on sheets of paper? Men trying to work out the answers to complicated maths and physics problems using a pencil and paper without so much as a desktop computer in sight? Even the basic logic of his books is bollocks.

We'll have to agree to disagree, Azel.

Back to your question. Like I said, it took me around a third of the time it took to write my novel to edit it. If that sentence makes any sense!

the insistence on it comes from insecurity

I think complete beginners sometimes feel so pleased they've actually completed a piece, however short, that they put it on a pedestal, thinking "look what I've done!" to themselves. They feel they can't easily do it again so don't want to change a word. They're too inexperienced to see all the faults.

Deb