When you sit down to write your fics, do you:

(a) write each chapter in one sitting quickly, and then go back and edit?
or
(b) edit your writing while you're churning out the chapter?

I only ask because I do the latter and it takes me hours on end to get through a single chapter. Just wanted to get other opinions.

 

I edit while I write. I find if I go back over something after it's done, I can't see the mistakes as well as I can initially. But yes, it can take me hours to do a chapter - there are some that have taken me months because I just wasn't happy with them (and various RL issues, of course).

 

Option (a) for me. I think I'd go insane if I tried to get it perfect the first time around.

I usually write from an outline that consists of 4-6 scenes for each chapter. The scenes often change POVs, so if I get stuck or bored I just move on to a different scene. Later I'll go back and fill in the gaps and edit until I'm happy with it. I probably spend more time editing/revising than doing the initial writing.

 

It would also depend on the story - if it were a concept or idea I had been pondering for a long time I'd be more likely to write in the style of a). If it were a challenge, or something for lulz, I'd be more likely to edit as I write.

 

Yeah, this happens to me quite a lot. Though at the same time, I have a hard time moving past a scene I don't feel is perfected yet. I think this is one of the reasons why my transitions from paragraph to paragraph suffer occasionally - I get so caught up in fixing one paragraph that I loose the flow of the story and the next paragraph just doesn't fit as well as it should.

 

If I write a piece in multiple sittings, I edit the last few thousand words before writing the next. I'd have to reread anyway to get into the swing of things and I find I'm disinclined to let obvious errors go without fixing them.

I tend to edit as I write, but I don't go overboard. Getting a few thousand words out in a sitting is much more important than getting it right the first go. I usually give things a few rereads before handing it off to anyone.

 

Same as above, I can't ever write a single chapter in one sitting, partly because mine are all 10,000 words long, and partly because I have to edit it. I also send it off to a few editors and Betas before it comes back to me, looking almost completely different.

 

Exactly my method. Though, I usually go for 500 word increments of writing. This is not because of some secret writing-jutsu that I know, it's just from Jon, shezza, and I competing with each other everyday for months on end on who could write 500 the fastest. But it ended up becoming a good writing limit/pace for me long after we got too busy to play that game.

 

Awesome, thanks for all the advice fellas.

@Nuhuh - Those 500 word blocks, are they free flowing thoughts or are you taking time in between each sentence to rephrase things and such? I guess what I'm asking is how fast are you writing these 500 word sections, and is it just constant writing (no alterations)?

 

Usually free flowing, the goal being to write as fast as possible, but we did rephrase things because it had to be coherent. Since we exchanged what we wrote making sense was important, haha. And of course we were trying to outdo each other in what we were able to show within those 500 words.

Of course, later, when the chapter is written or if you're coming back to it, you read through and edit. But if I am feeling like a particular word or sentence is really bothering me, I leave it for the time being and put out as many words as I can to get past the block.

Something comes to me at second or third read to fix what I don't like.

 

Thanks man, much appreciated.

Just tried that technique out - don't think I've ever even come close to writing 500 words in 30 minutes before. Granted, it's not the best work at all, but I might as well get my ideas down on the page and then painstakingly edit, as opposed to doing the same after every paragraph.

Should help me quicken my writing.

 

I'd advise that writing will vary - sometimes it will come free flowing, and then you can go back and edit, but other times, you stare at a block of writing and edit it over and over and over until something comes up.

But I think I'm more of the latter than the former in scenes of description and dialogue. But in battle scenes... it just comes out and only makes little sense in hindsight.

 

^^This

I'm more of a stream-of-consciousness writer, and I plan very little in advance. I prefer to see where the story goes. For example, I'm pretty sure I know how Wastelands of Time is going to end, but getting to the ending is still a bit of a blur. Half the crap in that story wasn't planned, which works, sometimes, so long as I build on previous stuff and make it look like I knew what I was doing the whole time.

Biggest downfall of this - plot holes and loose ends.

Ah well.

 

Hmm. I used to be a 'sit and write and where it goes it goes' type of writer and I'll say that I used to be quite good at it. I managed some pretty long stories from it at the time, but I found that I couldn't finish a story. That sort of style to me was fuelled by my inspiration, which had it's good days and bad days and could be completely screwed by a bad review.

These days, I use a plot document, something that goes by chapter by chapter, scene by scene with notes of what I'm doing. I start of pretty basic at the beginning of a story, with all of the major events having sketchy outlines plus the first few chapters filled in, and then I work through it as I work through the story, filling in or removing things as I see fit.

I tend to split chapters up into difference 'scenes', and I try to get at least 1 scene done before I post it on DLP. It's always a WIP edit, I'll keep an eye out for spelling mistakes or misspelled words while I'm writing, and I rarely go back after I'm done for a proof-read (I'm lazy) before I post it on DLP. The gang here usually pick up the worst of them so it all ends up alright.

Sometimes I get stuck when there's this one scene that just won't come out write no matter what edits I do but I just give it some time and it'll come to me eventually, even if I do it crappily and hope that everybody skips it.