How many rewrites

I could always make something more stylish, I could always lose a few words, but generally speaking I am doing things against a timetable. But I need to allow enough space to get enough rewriting done. It might only one redraft, it might be two or three, it might be more, depending on who the audience is, but it will eventually be constrained by time. I think professionals expect to rewrite and they see revision as re-vision, that is, an opportunity to think again about what they have written and how the piece is structured.

The cooking is the redrafting. And the final draft is merely the serving up, where you add your bits and pieces and make it look nice. There are various ways of viewing that ultimate stage. So if I do anything else I should do another dish. You can run it out in wonderful ways. He talks of writing as chutnification. Cookies Policy. Privacy Policy. Twitter Facebook Vimeo. Including your own. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.

It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina. The six hundred are there. Posted on 18th May 31, views. Explore: Quotations. This article has 2 comments. Learn more. How many rewrites should a writer expect for a novel? Ask Question. Asked 4 years, 9 months ago. Active 5 months ago. Viewed 6k times. Improve this question. Community Bot 1. Richard Stanzak Richard Stanzak 2, 1 1 gold badge 12 12 silver badges 28 28 bronze badges.

Arguably the point list you give as an example only has two re-writes. Authors I know don't consider corrections to be a "rewrite" of the novel, although there might well be rewrites of paragraphs.

And the thing about computers is that you can rapidly generate 20 drafts just by fixing 20 typos found by your "beta readers", one at a time as the emails come in, which in times past would be found by a proofreader and fixed in a single new draft. That got published. So don't worry too much about measuring and comparing.

I don't consider edits as rewrites. I consider rewriting and deleting whole sections as rewrites. I think writing is like oil painting, if you mess up an area you remove it and do it again, hopefully improving the work with the changes.

I think you'll find so many opinions on this topic by writers who aren't you that it's going to boil down to "as many as it takes" — corsiKa. You're "not quite [as] bad" as Roald Dahl? Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. There really is no general answer to this. Improve this answer. I decided perfection is the enemy of the good, therefore I strive for good. It's actually fun to see incremental improvements in my technique while developing my own voice.

Writing is a great hobby, few fisherman can catch a fish on their first cast that will make them famous, Cards are the same, not many are able to draw a flush with the first hand. Writing is not only fun but offers hope that with enough patience and practice we can produce a work of art with value. I thought, but I could easily be wrong, that Hemingway re-wrote it 39 times and when asked why said: 'I couldn't get the words right. Also, thank you for the reference to Elle Casey.

Mitchell Hemingway said 39, but 47 have been found and published: nytimes. That is a good attitude, RichardStanzak. Thank you, I am finding it is easier now I understand my own story and its characters. I wrote the first draft just to prove I could, I read it and the blogger above is correct to call it a vomit draft. Yet, I could make out the bones of something I imagined my book could become.

I now look forward to writing on my series so I guess that means I am a happy writer. There is not one answer, as others have said.

But I would suggest the following: How many rewrites it takes to make a competent writer is a very different question from how many rewrites it takes for a competent writer to write a new book. DepressedDaniel DepressedDaniel 1 1 silver badge 2 2 bronze badges. Talent needs polish. Even Cartland and Asimov had editors. I have seen writing improve from one draft to the next as plot holes are fixed, phrases are fine-tuned, and characters are developed.

You may rewrite more or less depending on your talent and your skill, but nobody writes so perfectly on the first shot that they don't need any editing, or rewriting.

I agree, I can even tell with my own writing.