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

[amhran_comhrac]

If you ever feel up to it some of the character-specific threads on BSN have them every week. I know the Anders, Zevran, and Nathaniel ones do at least. Maybe Alistair's does, too. Not sure, I generally just skim that one.

It'll usually be something simply- like on the Anders thread this week's prompt is just "morrigan." Other ones have been things like "earring," "children," "jealousy," etc. Really vague so you don't get boxed into writing something too specific and we don't just end up with half a dozen versions of the exact same story.

I find it's a good way to try out a new style of writing or do something wildly different from my ongoing fics, which is a nice change of pace. The timing really forces me to focus on getting my grammar right as I go, too, which is never a bad thing.