I feel like most writers I know end up cutting words from the draft when they edit.
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@astronomerritt my first drafts are usually pretty clean, but also there are stories I have been writing and rewriting for decades.
@Rhube Same on both "clean first draft" and "writing and rewriting for decades". For the latter I tend to start over from scratch every single time because my vision for the story has changed. Exhausting. I should stop.
It's actually nice to hear from someone else who writes pretty clean first drafts. I know that common writing advice is to let your first draft be absolute hot garbage, and I've tried going in with that mindset, but I find that I just don't enjoy writing that way. I LIKE sitting there for a bit fiddling with a paragraph until it doesn't suck.
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@astronomerritt depends on the draft and the scene content. I often focus on the dialogue and fill in the scene after.
@Emmacox Yeah, I've done that. And sometimes I don't explicitly set out to do that, but then I'll go in for the second draft and realise a scene has absolutely no sense of physical place past the introductory paragraph. Oops.
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@astronomerritt my partner tends to add words when editing (depending on the type of edit he's doing). Often he wants to keep the book under a word goal, and will purposefully edit with the secondary goal of removing words
@Artemis201 Interesting! Is your partner a fiction writer or non-fiction? I'm wondering if it's different.
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I feel like most writers I know end up cutting words from the draft when they edit. Do any writers reading this find that they tend to add words instead?
My first drafts are often pretty sparse. When I'm editing, I work out where I need to slow down a bit, set a scene, let the story breathe, give the reader a little bit more information.
As a person, I am... loquacious, let's say, but apparently this doesn't translate to my writing.
@astronomerritt Yeah I think I tend to do this. (But I also sometimes remove words or replace words where I feel it's needed.)
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@astronomerritt Yeah I think I tend to do this. (But I also sometimes remove words or replace words where I feel it's needed.)
@Aaron_Davis Oh yeah, for sure I still remove words, I have a horrible tendency to use weasel words in a first draft and I have to cut ALL of them in the second. But on the whole, the second draft will have a longer word count.
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I feel like most writers I know end up cutting words from the draft when they edit. Do any writers reading this find that they tend to add words instead?
My first drafts are often pretty sparse. When I'm editing, I work out where I need to slow down a bit, set a scene, let the story breathe, give the reader a little bit more information.
As a person, I am... loquacious, let's say, but apparently this doesn't translate to my writing.
My professional writing is for academic purposes, but yes, my first drafts tend to be terse, and readers complain that they need more context/explanation/expansion.
(My superpower is that when everyone else is done writing a grant proposal and it's 30% over the length limit, I come in and condense it until it fits.)
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@Rhube Same on both "clean first draft" and "writing and rewriting for decades". For the latter I tend to start over from scratch every single time because my vision for the story has changed. Exhausting. I should stop.
It's actually nice to hear from someone else who writes pretty clean first drafts. I know that common writing advice is to let your first draft be absolute hot garbage, and I've tried going in with that mindset, but I find that I just don't enjoy writing that way. I LIKE sitting there for a bit fiddling with a paragraph until it doesn't suck.
@astronomerritt I rarely rewrite entirely from the beginning, tho I have on occassion.
A lot of writing advice is just what works for one person that they're convinced will work for everyone else.
Editing garbage is much more painful to me than getting something down in the first place, so I prefer to not write garbage 😅 but also I have been a proofreader & editor for 15~ years and in and out of half a dozen writing groups. My first drafts weren't always clean; I've just had a lot of practice.
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@Artemis201 Interesting! Is your partner a fiction writer or non-fiction? I'm wondering if it's different.
@astronomerritt fiction.
And when I say "tends to", I mean if he's not paying attention to word count, his word count often balloons. So he tries to be rigorous about keeping under the limit he sets himself (120k), which often means purposefully removing words during edits (unless it's an edit where he realizes that the story needs a while extra scene to make things make sense) -
My professional writing is for academic purposes, but yes, my first drafts tend to be terse, and readers complain that they need more context/explanation/expansion.
(My superpower is that when everyone else is done writing a grant proposal and it's 30% over the length limit, I come in and condense it until it fits.)
@stevegis_ssg Ooh, now this is interesting to me, because I tended to overwrite in my professional, academic writing! You have a true superpower there, honestly, anyone who can condense a proposal down like that is a genius and a saint.
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@astronomerritt I rarely rewrite entirely from the beginning, tho I have on occassion.
A lot of writing advice is just what works for one person that they're convinced will work for everyone else.
Editing garbage is much more painful to me than getting something down in the first place, so I prefer to not write garbage 😅 but also I have been a proofreader & editor for 15~ years and in and out of half a dozen writing groups. My first drafts weren't always clean; I've just had a lot of practice.
@Rhube Yes, exactly!! I was trying to think through why my first drafts are so clean and I think you've nailed it. I do not want to edit garbage. Also, I've been writing since I learned how and seriously studying writing and narratives since I was a teenager, so I suppose that's rubbed off on me too. But absolutely the thought of editing my own garbage gives me hives.
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@astronomerritt fiction.
And when I say "tends to", I mean if he's not paying attention to word count, his word count often balloons. So he tries to be rigorous about keeping under the limit he sets himself (120k), which often means purposefully removing words during edits (unless it's an edit where he realizes that the story needs a while extra scene to make things make sense)@Artemis201 Ah, that's very interesting! I don't pay attention to word count at all, really, but I can definitely see how that would be a useful thing to do.
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I feel like most writers I know end up cutting words from the draft when they edit. Do any writers reading this find that they tend to add words instead?
My first drafts are often pretty sparse. When I'm editing, I work out where I need to slow down a bit, set a scene, let the story breathe, give the reader a little bit more information.
As a person, I am... loquacious, let's say, but apparently this doesn't translate to my writing.
I do. A rough chapter may start at 700 words and take several fluffings to get to 2,000 words.
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I do. A rough chapter may start at 700 words and take several fluffings to get to 2,000 words.
@UncoveredMyths Fluffings! :D
You're even more sparse than I am! I'd say a normal chapter word-length increase for me would be anything from a sixth to a third. That's really interesting. What do you tend to leave out in the first draft that you add in the second?
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@UncoveredMyths Fluffings! :D
You're even more sparse than I am! I'd say a normal chapter word-length increase for me would be anything from a sixth to a third. That's really interesting. What do you tend to leave out in the first draft that you add in the second?
It varies. Apparently a lot though. I always make a senses pass as well.
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It varies. Apparently a lot though. I always make a senses pass as well.
@UncoveredMyths Can I ask what you mean by a senses pass? I think I know, and do something similar, but I'd like to know your definition.
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@UncoveredMyths Can I ask what you mean by a senses pass? I think I know, and do something similar, but I'd like to know your definition.
The five main senses, as well as the intuition. Sometimes I think about how the other characters perceive the situation to help me recognize sights, sounds, smells, and textures.
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The five main senses, as well as the intuition. Sometimes I think about how the other characters perceive the situation to help me recognize sights, sounds, smells, and textures.
@UncoveredMyths Gotcha! Thanks for explaining. Yeah, I do the same thing, because I tend to skim over a lot of that stuff in the first draft.
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I feel like most writers I know end up cutting words from the draft when they edit. Do any writers reading this find that they tend to add words instead?
My first drafts are often pretty sparse. When I'm editing, I work out where I need to slow down a bit, set a scene, let the story breathe, give the reader a little bit more information.
As a person, I am... loquacious, let's say, but apparently this doesn't translate to my writing.
bear in mind I absolutely don't think an underwritten first draft is any better than an overwritten one, I was just doing a quick editing pass on the words I wrote yesterday and laughing at myself for how empty it is, in places.
one conversation in particular might as well have been taking place between two brains in jars communicating telepathically because I apparently did not include a single "stage direction".
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I feel like most writers I know end up cutting words from the draft when they edit. Do any writers reading this find that they tend to add words instead?
My first drafts are often pretty sparse. When I'm editing, I work out where I need to slow down a bit, set a scene, let the story breathe, give the reader a little bit more information.
As a person, I am... loquacious, let's say, but apparently this doesn't translate to my writing.
@astronomerritt I'm definitely an underwriter but I just embrace the talking heads lol.
I'd say net I probably add words in the edit, but mostly structural or things I didn't explain. Line editing I cut even more lmao.
I think the fact that I handwrite has a lot to do with it too. Very laborious to be loquacious but it doesn't always stop me.
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I feel like most writers I know end up cutting words from the draft when they edit. Do any writers reading this find that they tend to add words instead?
My first drafts are often pretty sparse. When I'm editing, I work out where I need to slow down a bit, set a scene, let the story breathe, give the reader a little bit more information.
As a person, I am... loquacious, let's say, but apparently this doesn't translate to my writing.
@astronomerritt I'm all over the map here. Some stuff drags and has to go; some stuff is empty talking heads that either needs to be cut or expanded. I also often write in short chunks, out-of-order, so sometimes I leave in unfinished sentences without even noticing...
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@timbray @JubalBarca @mathew It definitely is an issue (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse is a good resource for new editors if they run into trouble
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