Rule 17 Writing Question

[prisoner_24601]

Since I'm always curious about other people's creative process and how they write, I thought I'd ask the other fic writers on this community how much editing and trimming do you do to your work? Do you edit and trim at all? Write a first draft and then are finished? How much of your stuff ends up on the figurative cutting room floor? I'm wondering if other writers love to edit and pick at stuff the way I do or if they have an entirely different way of writing.

I know that for me, I'm a huge fan of Strunk & White's Rule 17 (Omit needless words) and that most of the time, I tend to do as much work editing, trimming and cutting my fics as I do on the actual first draft. And I've definitely had stories where my betas (or myself) have chopped huge parts out and trimmed the dialogue, etc... to pick up the pacing and the rhythm of the fic, and always my stories seem better for it.

So tell me your creative process because I'd love to know!

Comments

[prisoner_24601]

I'm a big fan of editing myself, although how much someone needs is really hard to tell and goes by a story by story basis. Some stories seem to need more than others in my experience. There are those here that disagree with me though.

Pacing is one of those really tricky and nebulous things about stories that if it's off, is a major problem but it's not so easy to spot. That's an area that I think editing stuff down and cutting the stuff that's unnecessary really, really helps.

I also have a hard time finishing things, not so much because I don't know how to finish them, but because I get distracted by new and shiner stuff and want to wander off. Focus is totally a problem of mine.