While most professional authors would probably have edited a completed draft of their work numerous times before they can publish it, it is uncommon to see fanfic authors doing the same thing.

Most fanfic authors would limit themselves to editing a chapter before it was posted online. The downside is, if the author have the intention to write a novel-length fic, continuity problems might arise when the story is drawing to a close.

Hence, should a fanfic author attempt to edit the submitted chapters if his or her intention is to please their readers as opposed to writing for their own personnel enjoyment?

Should a fanfic author view every chapter he has posted online as a completed work? Or should he or she view this as a draft that can be constantly edited in order to make the narrative more coherent?

 

I'd probably change little things. Misspellings, awkward turns of phrase, maybe rewrite a few scenes so they flow a little better.

The one thing I wouldn't change is narrative structure. Plot has to stay the same. People who have already read it might become confused if something in the later chapters reflects on the narrative changes you made earlier.

That's also why many authors consider posting chapters online, or at least to ffnet, 'complete' because that is where readers begin reading it.

 

I often edit a chapter for typos, formatting, or phrasing. But I'd never change anything substantive about the plot, because most readers aren't going to go back and read previous chapters, even if you tell them you've changed things.

If your story is really so fucked you need to change large parts of it, you should start another story and label it a rewrite.

Of course, if you plan properly you don't need to do that.

 

I agree with Taure and iLost, editing means just correcting basic mistakes; not changing any important fact or factors(until and unless there is blunder involved).

And once the story is 'online', I guess it's kind of 'final' or 'complete' work. Why would author edit the matter once it's online? It may be reasonable if it's done for some basic silly mistake and isn't done frequently, but if it's practiced regularly, then I would take the author as a fool.

And changing the plot or direction of story according to what readers want is not very appealing to me. It's my belief that author has a somewhat concrete plan as to what the plot would be like throughout the story, and his mindset is framed in that way. If he changes it for reader's reviews like, 'We no want HP/FD, we want HP/DM' then chances for the story to be good are very less(no keeding), imo. Then also there is the fact that author can't please every set of readers, since there are still some HP/FD people out here.

 

Sesc, I have to disagree with you here, as it can easily become an issue in otherwise great stories. Even the best authors have trouble with continuity from time to time, and need to edit previous updates, as we are not all-seeing or perfect by any stretch. I see no problem with doing it, as long as you make some note that a previous chapter was changed, and a short synopsis of what that change was. Even now, I'd like to go back and edit We'll All Fall as many people have pointed out that Fleur had already been to the Room of Requirement before Harry took her there personally. Those type of mistakes may turn people off of an otherwise entertaining story, and are easy enough to fix with a simple Author's Note: 'Oh, by the way readers, I'm a nitwit so I went back and changed a small, insignificant mistake.' In a lot of cases I think the readers would applaud you for not being completely half-assed.

Example: Harry Potter and The Death Eaters of Hogwarts versus The Death Eaters of Hogwarts. The second time around the story has been rearranged and rewritten and it's significantly better, especially the romance factor between Harry and Hermione. Granted, all of it has not been posted yet, but the parts that I've read are so much cleaner than the original.

To the original poster, I've seen it done in many different ways... as in the above story, it was completely rewritten under a similar title. Many authors would chose to just make one chapter different, and if so, you wouldn't need to completely rewrite a finished or almost-finished work. Sometimes plot points can be so confusing that you do need to rewrite a large portion of it, and that can be troublesome.

Really, ray243... to make this short, I don't see a problem with making the story as correct as possible, whether that means changing it every time you see a typo or just when its urgently needed. Readers will appreciate it 9 times out of 10, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just fix it if you want...

Which is probably what Sesc was trying to say in the first place, lol.

 

I try to not make major changes. If it's cosmetic, or fixing a plothole, I try to make it so it doesn't change anything in the newer chapters, but those who haven't read the story yet would find it a bit better quality than it would otherwise be. Usually I just fix errors and stuff, since several thousand readers can spot stuff better than a single editor can, most of the time.

 

Ugh...

Okay, I don't know who here actually remembers the opening chapter of Renegade Cause in its original form. I do, because it's pretty damn awful (and because Vash justly flamed it, I got petulant about the flame, and then I got justly smacked down). And I can say, with some confidence, that my writing has gotten better since 2008.

So, a couple years back, I took a look at the opening chapter of Renegade Cause, realized that it was pretty awful, and I rewrote it. Not hugely, mainly fixing up a bunch of cosmetic details that made elements of the characterization a bit better. Do I think it's perfect? Fuck no I don't - writing a great opening chapter is a skill I can admit I haven't quite mastered yet. And it's hard to argue with the stats: on fanfiction.net, the first chapter of RC has about 166,000 views. The second has about 38,000. So there's obviously problems there that I still haven't quite resolved.

That said, sometimes you need to be brutally honest with yourself, particularly if you're publishing stuff on fanfiction.net, and realize that sometimes the original way you published it just doesn't fucking work. Of the early chapters of RC, I've written the first eighteen probably have a dozen times, touching up the paint and fixing up some minor issues. It's one of the benefits of publishing a serialized story, which was what RC effectively became.

Now, let's fast-forward to now. I'm currently on a quest to write about 42,000 words in six days. In this case, I've got no choice but to edit as I'm going as fast as I fucking can. I'm relying on raw energy and as much talent as I can dredge up to make this project work. While I do occasionally go back to touch up previous work, I have to save that for the final read-through, because as it is right now, I don't have fucking time to keep going back.

Not sure if that answers your question, but I don't think there was much of a question here anyways. Oh well, back to work.

 

I've seen comments like this a few times now, but I'm really not convinced that even a 75% drop in views from chapter 1 to 2 means much of anything at all. The number of views reported is not the number of times the chapter was actually read; there's no javascript reporting when the user has scrolled to the bottom of the page or closed the page very shortly after opening it. Opening the first page of a story and then not reading it at all is not a terribly uncommon thing for me to do, and I assume that I am not unique that regard. OTOH, for me opening the second page of a story is nearly always followed by reading it, so I would expect the number of views on the second chapter to be much closer to the number of reads than on the first chapter.

 

I'm not entirely sure how reliable this is, though.

Take Wastelands. It has it's problems, yes, but I think I can say it is considered a 'successful' inclusion to the mounds of fanfiction littering ff.net. Perhaps go as far to say that it may even be considered a false peak toward the summit of good story.

Here's my numbers:

First chapter (which, admittedly, is a pseudo-prologue): 684,785 views

Second chapter: 297,094 views.

Nearly 400,000 less views, overall. 2/3 thirds attrition rate. My other stories bear similar stats. I'd say this is normal, and we have to account for word of mouth, where people sample the story more than once, based on recommendations and what have you.

Personally, I've never gone back and done more than fix spelling mistakes in my posted stories. I 'wing' most of the plot, around a handful of key story ideas (read: Atlantis), and make future plot fit past design.

 

I just thought it would be interesting to discuss whether the merits of such edits is worth pissing off some of your readers.

The thing is, as professional author have mentioned before, even a completed story merits you to make massive edits. Inverarity have mentioned before how he made numerous edit despite completing his fic. Entire chapters were deleted because they affected the overall pacing of the story.

No matter how well you plan your story, there will be problems that pop up as your story progress. You might realise that you should not have revealed certain plot twist so early, or you might realise you should showcase the death of a character at an earlier chapter because it has more emotional impact that way.

 

It's no surprise the first chapter has more views than the second one.
There's also googling a story from another place, opening the first chapter for a second or two and choosing the chapter you are currently on, making yet another view counted on the first chapter. Its especially common if the story is a huge one.


As for the topic editing is an integral part of writing. Of course, there is a fine line between rewriting everything every two days and plugging some plot holes. I'm not talking about simple editing for mistakes - people should do those as they see them.
Fixing the plot holes sometimes might be as simple as changing a word or two - these, I think are justified enough to be regarded as similar to grammar mistakes you suddenly notice.

I think I had noticed a miscount of the years required for Tonks' Auror training two chapters after the fact, and I fixed a few lines with a note at the bottom of the chapter.
If there will arise a more serious plot hole that breaks the ideas or believably too much I'll probably try to fix it too, with as little changes to the original, but not before checking if future chapters can give justification for it instead.

 

Thought I'd chime in here, as this is an issue I've been struggling with--struggling in the sense of trying to decide how I feel about going back and making changes, where the line is, and how to handle it.

At the moment, I'm inclined to agree with the position that going back and making changes which don't materially alter the plot is fine. I don't usually have a problem with spelling, but I have a few bad habits that don't always leap out at me until I've proofread a story many times or it's already online: mainly repetitive re-use of certain descriptive words, pronouns, dialogue tags or turns of phrase (especially within the same chapter) that for whatever reason get stuck in my head while I'm writing that chapter. Copy and paste errors from moving passages around that don't necessarily trip a spell-checker or seem immediately out of place. Awkward phrasing and flow, a paragraph that depends on previously-introduced information which was removed before publication and not noticed because I as the writer already know that information, that sort of thing.

At that point the only real alternative to an update is leaving it published, warts and all. I don't see the value in that when I could fix the problems as I notice them, learn from them, and leave a better story for future readers.

My real struggle right now is when and how to call out those changes (e.g. in footnotes at the bottom of the changed chapter, etc), and whether to make them as soon as I notice them or save them up and do a mass update so that I don't spam people who are following the story.

 

Personally, once I've posted a chapter of a story online, I've never gone back to edit it for anything more then spelling and grammar errors. Because my few readers have already read the chapter, and already know where the plot was going based on what I've already posted. Which has honestly given me a lot of problems in the past with writing myself into a corner, which ended up with me not finishing the story.

So I decided that I'd never start posting a story to fanfiction.net or anywhere public again until the story was finished. Which... also ends up with me not finishing a story, but at least I'm not leaving any readers hanging now, though hopefully I'll eventually be able to finish something now that I'm back in school and not working full time; though I'm definitely going to stick with my idea of not posting any chapters until the story is finished (other than maybe a final revision for grammar and spelling errors), so that I won't have to worry about continuity errors and writing myself into a corner that I can't get out of again.

 

See I think that's where an outline comes in handy. Or at least to have a firm Beginning Middle End.

Otherwise like you said you end up writing yourself into a corner.

For me I have outlines. Lots of outlines but they are always missing something. Either a Middle or an End or hell there's one where I dont know how to start it to get to the end.

 

Outlines do end up helping a bit... as long as you stick to them and don't add a subplot that ends up taking over the majority of the fic and can't get back to your original plot. Which is what happened to me last time. I still use them even if I'm not planning on posting till its finished. Otherwise I'll end up getting to like chapter 10 with out anything resembling a coherent plot happening, though at least if you're not posting it for anyone to read in that case you could always edit out the pointless crap after you do find your coherent plot.

My outlines usually have a rough sketch of the beginning, middle, and end along with the important some of the important events between those parts. I don't rigidly outline the story to every little detail though because I'll just get bored of writing it.

 

I do tend to edit the latest chapter based on critiques from DLP members, which mostly amounts to details rather than significant plot differences. I occasionally go back to previous chapters to fix spelling, grammar, punctuation, and/or if I notice that I overuse a word. There's a rare occasion where I fix some earlier mistake in continuity, or I put some reference to later events in earlier chapters for consistency. E.g. a character that I hadn't technically named until chapter 20 is mentioned in 10, that sort o thing.

My outlines are pretty rough usually, but with lots of little bitty notes on everything that is relevant. I can get away with quite a bit that way, and continuity tends to work out well enough. It also differs per story. E.g. Torikaeru was rigidly planned from the start, while WaS was essentially just a few chapters of an idea before the overall plot crystallized.

 

I'll be totally honest... I don't usually do outlines for fanfiction. I have a general idea of what I'd like from the characters in my story, and the filler that I use to move the story along is usually character-related, and spur of the moment anyway.

For example, for Gone, No Goodbyes:

Chapter One: I knew I wanted a letter format opening, without explicitly stating who it was too. I also knew I wanted Harry to say goodbye to Ron and Hermione right off the bat, essentially showing two things: 1. The only people's opinions that he values, and 2. Hermione can guilt trip him just enough that he feels bad about leaving everyone.

Chapter Two: I wanted Harry to leave the country for once and enjoy himself, so I had his first meeting with his boss in Greece. Harry meets his love interest before the meeting, and after the meeting he intends to find her. Simple as that, which became 7,000 words of the boss explaining the situation in Africa (foreshadowing conflict).

Chapter Three: I wanted to open the first part of the chapter with a bit from the end of the chapter. Then I cut to Harry seeking out the girl (more to show what Harry is like rather than how awesome Deni is), followed by an impromptu date, and a surprise twist which isn't explained until chapter four.

Chapter Four: They fuck, and then break up in the span of 2,000-3,000 words. Then Harry takes the Portkey to Africa, and meets what I've labelled the most important character in the story - Abebi, who guides him into the caves to their base.

I guess what I'm trying to say is your outline is meant to keep you on path, not necessarily limit you to what you've got in it. I would never write an outline that explained what my characters are going to be, or become, or even when they will enter the story, because I want the freedom to make that up as I go. Of course I know I want Harry to be a badass, but I'm intentionally showing that he is afraid in the places he goes, because he SHOULD be scared, he SHOULD be paranoid... all human beings would be in his place. If I had said beforehand: Harry will be a badass, and did everything to portray that, then I would fuck up the growth of my story, as well as its realism.

I don't know, I guess it's just me. I don't like outlining the story. If I have a problem with something I did, I just fix it. Usually DLPers bring it to my attention (see: Andro, in the For Review thread for the same story) and I immediately look into making it better. Hence why he read it, called it a 2/5, then went back a few weeks later, read it again, and now says its a 4/5.

TL;DR: Outlines aren't as important as most make them out to be (my opinion, just saying) and you can and SHOULD fix the mistakes in your published story as often as possible.

 

In your case, the chapter wasn't actually "complete". It was half-assed, barely a step up from an outline with the real wordage to be filled in, and you moved on prematurely. Your going back to it was less editing and more completing the chapter.

 

I make sure I have all of the major stuff planned out before I actually start writing. If while I'm writing the story a cool minor arc or plot twist jumps into my head and its far enough into the future that I don't have to shoehorn it, I'll include it. The little stuff I just let happen.

If I don't plan out the big stuff, though, like the overarching conflict, the finale, the core characterizations, etc. it all implodes. So generally I make sure I have all that stuff down and then I go nuts.