Inspired by discussion on IRC.

I'm curious: how many writers revise as they write?

Revising as you write: you write a sentence, then delete it or change bits you're not happy with, sometimes several times in a row before you get it right (or at least tolerable) before moving on to the next sentence, and then often scrapping the whole paragraph anyway.

More or less extreme versions exist.

Poll for statistical justice.

 

I both revise as I write, and after I am finished.

Unfortunately, it also means that I write very, very slowly.

 

I occasionally revise as I write, but for the most part, I already know exactly what I want to write when I sit down in front of the computer. Right down to my exact word choice, too.

I tend to do a lot of thinking before I start writing. On the spot stream of consciousness writing has never been my forte. I like to know what I'm doing ahead of time.

 

So far as I've found, its always a bad idea to revise while you write. You fuck up your own flow to much trying to spell-check and shit while write.

The best possible way to do this is to write until you simply can't anymore, leave, come back, read it over, and do your checks then. And then pass it along to someone else to give it another one over.

<_< Just remember to do it. I forget often.

 

I do minimal revision while writing, usually only if something sticks out really badly. Most of it I do after I finish the segment (usually scene changes).

 

Agonizing over one sentence is dysfunctional writing. Not that I haven't done it before, but I know how destructive that is to actually completing a scene. A sentence doesn't just stand by itself, it is part of a paragraph; it has to be judged on its own merit and how well it fits in the overall message/tone of the paragraph. So it's best to write something, highlight it so you can go back to it if you're not satisfied, and continue writing. Coming back lets you see things better.

 

Basically this, as I wrote in the Sacrifices thread, but with the addition of knowing exactly what needs to happen before I hit the keyboard. It's revision by rewriting. Redundant as shit, but if I'm looking back on a sentence I wrote that I don't like, there's little I can do to make it work aesthetically. Equally, wordings that I like stay in my head. Eventually I end up with the same content, but written in a way that fits what I want to be seeing. It's the only way, for some reason, I can get it the way I want it.

Meh, there's easier ways to do it, but it's a bad habit I've never been able to break.

 

Both as I write and after.

I usually have a basic idea in my head when I sit down to type but the story more or less flows as it will and I have to stop and go back to edit either a typo or a sentence or whole paragraphs if they don't jive the first few times.

For the most part this doesn't slow me down as I'm fairly fast, but getting the motivation to write can take forever some days.

 

I always read the last chapter or portion of what I wrote to get my mind in the flow of things. As I read, I revise. When I get to the end, I add to what I wrote last, though when writing the new stuff, I hammer it out fast with the knowledge that I'll be coming back to polish in my next sitting.

After I complete a work, I let it sit for awhile, then come back to it for a final several passes to polish it and make the words flow. When I don't get enough time for this last step, like if I'm writing for a deadline and am late, the end result tends to be pretty choppy. (My last one-shot is an example of this).

 

That is actually good advice; thanks!

 

This. I'm the same when it comes to writing.

I scrutinize the words as I write to such an extent that it damages my ability as a writer because I won't show it to anyone unless I'm satisfied with it.

Thankfully, the 500 Club that Nuhuh started is slowly chipping that away.

 

I do a combination of both. The kind of stuff I do while writing is simply taking care of the red and green squigglies (spelling and grammar stuff) which doesn't take more than a few seconds. When i'm done with the chapter I just reread the whole thing several times, editing what is necessarily. I find editing while writing to be helpful, because if the chapter is 10k words long, it can take a looong time to edit.

Either way, a beta would be helpful since we never catch our own mistakes.

 

Decent beta readers are pretty hard to find, though.

 

Yup, and thats why all my stories are a mess, despite the massive amounts of time I spend editing.

Oh, and irony.

 

Hours are spent writing and stressing over a couple of paragraphs.

Seconds are spent deleting them all again. :>

 

I like to think the scene through a little before I sit down, helps to know the direction the story is going to. Advance planning tends to help me focus. On the other side of that is sometimes I just sit down and write, and sometimes the story evolves with what I'm writing.

Like today. Was thinking of a story with Harry in it, had the ton down, but no plot. Then I started acting my thoughts through, putting myself in various roles, and BAM, the plot came out of the grinder. Now a few more days and I may sit down with this one.

As to editing the grammar and not just the plot. I write a line and if I catch a misspelling, I back space, correct and move-on. Or I'll not like what I have going sentence structure-wise, say if the thing gets too long, I'll break it up into other sentences. As I'm writing I try to be conscious of long sentences then going to shorter ones for emphasis. I try to use better descriptors besides red, like ruby, and sometimes I'll get stuck on one word that I can't think of and use a thesaurus to try and find it. After a minute of cussing my horrible memory, I'll find a close one and then move-on.

When I get stumped on dialogue or a scene, I'll go back a few paragraphs and reread, editing as I go.

Then once that chapter or scene or break(sometimes I just leave the scene hanging) is done, I'll quit and come back in a day or two. Sometimes when I return to it I'll continue with the story, or sit down and edit for grammar, flow, and plot.

With all that done, I'll do a final read-through. I'm not too good with specifics myself, but I can usually catch most inconsistencies. I would like to do as Pers does and set the piece aside for a time, a few weeks, and come back to it with fresh eyes. I don't know how many times I've come back to a piece I thought done months ago and just shook my head.

(Looks ups. Shit that's a lot of tl;dr.)

 

I frequently don't have the time to dedicate to writing, so I end up writing and revising by neccessity, as I'm only able to cram out only a few paragraphs at a time or so. I don't do it on a sentence by sentence basis though. More frequntly I'll go by a paragraphs, or chunks of paragraphs.

After the chapter is done i'll go back and go through sentence by sentence, trying to polish and buff it.

 

I fucked up on the poll and chose the wrong option, but I revise as I write and after I finish. Revising as I go is essential, and I do tend to get bogged down on the same sentence for a bit, but it's just something I do and something I can't avoid. Revising afterwards I've always done because I have this habit of forgetting to write words, which is all kinds of stupid, but it was only with Breach of Contract that I actually revised seriously, which meant I rewrote the entire chapter with it side by side with the first draft, allowing me to spot mistakes as I went and make up new phrasing or whatever as I go.

 

Unless you're mindlessly just writing out a stream of consciousness.. I don't see how you can't be revising while you write. And it's always a good idea to do it afterwards too.

 

There was a churning darkness that greeted my soft soles of the my feet, longing to be with me as I sought to be with it. I didn't want that to happen, I only wanted to be close to the thing, to want it to want me, but not daring to get closer.

^That is stream of conscious. Me just writing what comes to mind. Usually that is what happens when one does not think two seconds after what you are typing. When I type, no matter how fast, I have a general idea where it is going and where I want it to go.

See the difference?