Getting back to old rough drafts

Fruitbat said:

Wondering if anyone else does this... I had three rough drafts, two nonfiction and one fiction (one of them was from twenty years ago!) I'm not sure why I wandered off and left them in the first place. But one of my new year's resolutions was to finish them and it's lovely to have that low hanging fruit to pluck now, anyway. One is done, two to go! Does anyone else do things like this?

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I've done this with quite a few short story ideas, but only one novel.

The first novel I wrote had many of the usual problems: wrong starting spot, passive protagonists, cartoon villainy, plot holes you could fly a spaceship through, and, of course, terrible grammar.
On top of those problems, I realized the concept required bigger writing chops than I had. Into the drawer it went.

It's six years later and my skills have improved (Still in a long and bloody war with the forces of grammar). While it won't be the next book I write, I think I'm finally ready to add it to my 'Ideas to turn into Novels' list.

slhuang said:

(bold mine)

Huh, that's odd, because damn near every one I talk to or follow rewrites or revises to some degree.

Here's what a ten-second Google search turned up:

"Ultimate lesson: clinging to a first draft and resisting revision is a symptom of addiction — you may be huffing the smell coming off your own stink." -- Chuck Wendig

"The magic, for me, happens in the rewriting." -- Kameron Hurley

"I enjoy rewriting much more than I do first drafts. First drafts are really hard. Rewriting you’ve at least got something to work with." -- Robin Hobb

"I had rough patches, where I struggled, and even a few periods where I was doing more rewriting than writing." -- George R.R. Martin

"Writing is rewriting, constantly rewriting. Today I think it takes me about four pages of writing to get one that I like." -- Elmore Leonard

Oh, and here are some more quotes my search found floating around that I couldn't find primary sources for but that Google brings up as being attributed to these writers:

"The first draft of anything is shit." -- Ernest Hemingway

"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." -- Terry Pratchett

"Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it." -- Michael Crichton

"You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page." -- Jodi Picoult

"Writing is rewriting." -- E.B. White


Heinlein's process may have worked for him, but he also wasn't God. A lot of working professionals rewrite or revise through multiple drafts.

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Did you even read everything on that link? It sure doesn't sound like it. Nowhere does it say not to rewrite or revise. In fact, it says the opposite. But there comes a point where you need to STOP rewriting and revising, put the story into submission, and keep it there.

Everyone I know rewrites or revises to some degree. So did Heinlein. I rewrite/revise/edit every page up to twenty or more times.

Despite this, sooner or later, it's time to stop messing around, and get on to the next story. As Robert j. Sawyer says on that link, you can't endlessly tinker, and too many do this. Get the story written, get it rewritten and revised and edited, and then leave it the hell alone and start another story.

Hemingway's advice is used by far too many writers who have not the faintest clue what he meant, and don't bother finding out. His first drafts were written better than most writer's twentieth drafts, but they were never the way he wanted them in the sense of theme, so he rewrote most drastically. Good. If yours need rewritten, then rewrite them, but then put them into submission and leave them alone.

If you don't, you'll be one more writer who fails and drops out of the race. Most of those writers you list are, in fact, firm believers in Heinlein's Rules. Hemingway came along too soon, but like most successful writer, he followed them pretty much to the letter, even though he'd never heard of them.

The simple fact is, Sawyer is dead right. Half of all writers fall out on each of those five rules,. It's no coincidence that the number of writer remaining after rule five is also the same percentage as successful writer out of any hundred picked at random.

When and if you sell something, you will write it, you will finish it, you will get it to where you want it, you will put it in submission, and you leave it there until it sells.

So why not do this intentionally with every story?

There should be no rough drafts lying around because you should finish everything you write, which ,means polishing it until it shines. Then you should submit it, forget it, and move on to the next story, which is where we all learn how to do what matters, which is tell the right story.

Jamesaritchie said:

Well, I never write a rough draft. Never have. So, no.

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Well, thanks for clarifying, James. Your earlier post which I'm quoting here gave a different impression, at least to some of us. I think we're tussling over semantics, at this point, but saying you never write a rough draft does imply you never need to polish, tighten, rewrite, revise.... Instead what I now take you to mean is that you intend never to leave anything you write in the *first* draft stage.

As for the rules, Rule number three does say quite clearly, refrain from rewriting. So, that's another place where we're missing each other. Refrain means don't do it. But yet, we all do it! Including you, up to twenty times a story.

The rule ought to say, don't get stuck there. But that isn't what it says. (And Sawyer amends it also in the article you linked.)

I think there's a difference between revising and rewriting.