Hi. I have been writing a novel for quite some time and every time I feel the first draft is ready, I rewrite and edit some more. At the rate I'm going I don't know if it will be done. How many times to you rewrite? When do you stop editing?
Hi. I have been writing a novel for quite some time and every time I feel the first draft is ready, I rewrite and edit some more. At the rate I'm going I don't know if it will be done. How many times to you rewrite? When do you stop editing?
To answer the original question, a first draft is the first time you write down your story. One of the mistakes I have made is revising stories before you have got to the end. You need to get the story down in it's entirety. Then you can look at it as a whole rather than extracts. Once you know how it ends you have a better view of what revisions are required to strengthen the story and fill in any gaps. Otherwise you are just fiddling about with pieces of writing without any overall plan to produce a finished masterpiece.
Thank you Kate and Jimmy. Thank you for reading my shared work.
I will definately edit it.
Hi, Carmelita!
(Your name and surname suggest 2 cultures: Latin and Germanic.) This is the 2nd time that I've seen this question posed. Kate has answered well, but if you want other voices, you could search [several pages back] in this Q&A section to find some.
I agree that when you're not sure whether you've been over-editing you should pass the work on to others. Good friends who are willing to work through your "first draught" with a blue (or red) pencil, underlining anything that "doesn't work", as well as typos. You can run your eyes over the same mistake 20 times without noticing it. Then a friend might see it the first time. Another thing that you can do is share it with us on W&A. We LIKE to read other writers' work-in-progress. It's a way to get out of working on our own. Trouble is, you say that you're working on a novel, and you'll have a limited space to share here. But I've seen more than one user post "Chapter 2" as a comment... and get feedback on it, as well.