June 21st check-in

[roane]

Happy summer! (Or winter, I suppose, if you're in the southern hemisphere.)

Poll #10909

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

View Respondents

How has the writing gone today?

View Answers

Great!
4 (80.0%)

Average
0 (0.0%)

Meh
1 (20.0%)

Other (in comments)
0 (0.0%)

What did you do today?

View Answers

Wrote
3 (75.0%)

Edited
1 (25.0%)

Sent to beta
0 (0.0%)

Posted
0 (0.0%)

Researched
0 (0.0%)

Other
0 (0.0%)

For discussion: what's your approach to editing? Are you a 'post the first draft and forget it about it' kind of person? Or do you make multiple editing passes, trying to get every little nuance just right? Or somewhere in between?

Comments

[roane]

I'm anxiously awaiting comments on my latest chapter from my last beta, so I wondered how y'all do things. I think I do more editing than I realize--I'm always tweaking and changing things as I go through. I don't, however, do formal editing passes aside from one after my betas give me their notes. One of my betas, on her own stories, does three or so formal passes. It's pretty fascinating.

[linaewen]

Yesterday was wasted with unexpected RL things that kept me from writing. This morning has been the same, but I'm going to try to take control of all my free minutes that are left in the day to make progress in my current chapter. I'll do the poll later tonight to reflect how successful I manage to be!

I edit as I go, and then do a couple of formal edits both before and after having a beta look at it. My betas are less for editing than for seeing something I missed in continuity, word choice, or a misspelling I didn't catch, so the majority of the edits are on me -- which is the way I like it!

I also go back after some time and reread my old stuff and if I see something I want to change, I do so. I'm posting older chapters in places where they haven't been before, and that gives me the chance to update and edit. I can see it with fresher eyes and I notice that I've used too many semicolons, or something like that.

[ty_writes]

I wrote a bit today but now I'm having trouble continuing.

Discussion:
Editing is a real big issue for me. I try to edit as I go, then plop the story somewhere so that I can find it a month later.

[bay_alexison]

Today I had been through a long bus ride so I'm quite tired and don't feel like writing today. Will try to make progress tomorrow, oi.

I too am waiting comments from one of my betas. Beta A hasn't responded to me since a couple weeks ago and I'm beginning to worry. As for me, I do light edits as I go, but for formal edits I would look over my works once or twice before sending them to my beta. I then do my last edit after my beta sends me his/her suggestions and corrections.

[lilly_c]

I finished my casestory big bang fic. Those final 700 words were torture but I got them out and tied up two connecting scenes. I'm going to leave it for a couple of days and then start editing. Now that my casestory is done I can focus on the het big bang fic that has been ignored lately.

For a short fic I tend to give it a once over and post it, for a long fic I take a couple of days to really look it over and make sure everything makes sense. I also print off the final draft of my long fic so I can pick up on anything I'd likely miss on the screen.

[the_rck]

My approach to editing depends on how much time I have and on what sort of feedback I get from my beta readers. I have trouble improving a story without help (or a long time to let it sit, so that I can come back to it fresh), so I always hope for a beta reader who'll give me lots of comments about what works and what doesn't so that I can use them as a road map when I edit.

My current fic is probably going up unedited (and unbeta'd). It's due on Sunday, and I'm not done with the first draft. Hopefully the recipient won't mind too much.