editing to first draft ratio

KiwiChick · Oct 12, 2006

I'm just curious how long everyone else spends editing relative to writing the first draft. I heard someone say they spend twice as long editing. Is this normal? I'm sure it depends a lot on the person - how much you plan before you write and so on - but I'm still interested to hear the range. Where do you fit in?

KiwiChick

LeeFlower · Oct 12, 2006

I kind of edit as I go (I start each day by reading and editing what I wrote the day before), but when it comes to the actual read-through and edit, it isn't taking me nearly as long as it took to write the thing. I got waylaid by schoolwork, but even then, I had it out to betas in a few weeks. Once I get it back from them, it'll probably take a few more weeks (unless they tell me I need to rewrite the whole thing-- knock on wood) to incorporate their feedback before I'm ready to start querying.

I can't imagine taking twice as long to edit as I spent writing it-- I'd never be finished!

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 12, 2006

Took me nearly 2 years to write it, I sure as heck ain't spending 4 years editing it. 6 years strikes me as a long turnaround in this industry.

jbal · Oct 12, 2006

First novel took me three months to write, a month to edit, and it's still waiting on a third draft that I'm guessing will take a month or so. But that's a guess, as there will be some fairly major changes.

ChunkyC · Oct 12, 2006

I probably spend double the amount of time on editing, but that can run upwards of half a dozen drafts.

SeanDSchaffer · Oct 12, 2006

KiwiChick said:
I'm just curious how long everyone else spends editing relative to writing the first draft. I heard someone say they spend twice as long editing. Is this normal? I'm sure it depends a lot on the person - how much you plan before you write and so on - but I'm still interested to hear the range. Where do you fit in?

KiwiChick

Any more, I spend very little time actually writing new stuff, and much more time than I sometimes think I should, in the process of editing.

But the editing can be fun to an extent, because it allows me to expand--at least in the 2nd and 3rd Drafts--upon what I have already written. When the editing gets to the point that I cannot be creative, then I do not like it.

But I would say your speculation is pretty much correct where I am concerned. Except I would say I do 'more than twice as much' editing as I do actually writing my First Draft. A First Draft can take me a couple months to complete, whereas it can take me another year or so to edit the work, thanks in part to later Drafts that are a part of the said editing process.

TrainofThought · Oct 12, 2006

I’m an edit and revision freak. It took me about three months to write it longhand without worrying about punctuation and sentence structure, and then transferred to the computer. I have been editing for about 3 years. This is the fourth edit and I am comfortable with the story changes from revisions. Editing sentence structure takes me the longest, but I am learning from AW members.

Doug Johnson · Oct 12, 2006

Depends. If I want it to be excellent, I do a lot more editing and rewriting than if I just want it to be good.

Simon Woodhouse · Oct 12, 2006

I have a job to know where my re-writing ends and my editing begins; they seem to go hand in hand. I think I could keep doing both until the end of time, but I try to force myself to stop once I get past the third or fourth re-write.

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 12, 2006

Simon Woodhouse said:
I have a job to know where my re-writing ends and my editing begins; they seem to go hand in hand. I think I could keep doing both until the end of time, but I try to force myself to stop once I get past the third or fourth re-write.

Define for me:
Rewrite
Edit
Revise

Because to me, all three are just different names for the same process.

Once I've finished writing the first draft, everything after that, any changes I make, can be classified as either editing, rewriting, and/or revising.

aadams73 · Oct 12, 2006

I takes me about 2-3 months-ish to write a first draft. Next I revise, which takes about 3 weeks(depending) then I spend another couple of weeks editing and polishing.

(But I bet this varies wildly from writer to writer)

Arkie · Oct 12, 2006

I take as much time editing as writing, usually 10 drafts minimum.

Here's what another fellow says:

"I work like a pack mule, but it's my own choice. I'm like a galley slave who's chained for life to his oar but who loves the oar. Everything about it. I go over each sentence, time and again. I start cutting all the words it can do without. You have to keep your eye on the job because words are very sly, the rubbishy ones go into hiding and you have to dig them out--repetitions, synonyms, things that simply don't mean anything. I go over every image, metaphor, comparison, to see if they are fresh and accurate. If you can't find the right adjective for a noun, leave it alone. Let the noun stand by itself. A comparison must be as accurate as a slide rule, and as natural as the smell of fennel. I take out all the participles and adverbs I can...Adverbs are lighter. They can even lend you wings in a way, but too many of them make the language spineless. A noun needs only one adjective, the choicest. Only a genius can afford two adjectives to one noun. Line is an important in prose as in an engraving. It has to be clear and hard. But the most important thing of all is not to kill the story by working on it. Or else all your labor has been in vain. It's like walking a tight-rope. Well, there it is. We ought all to take an oath not to mess up our job.--Isaac Babel.

DamaNegra · Oct 12, 2006

I usually edit pretty fast, because the content's usually decent the first time around, so I don't spend too much time editing. I still believe that heartfelt contents are much better than careful prunning, I'll be more willing to consider a messy lawn beautiful and interesting than a carefully pruned one.

But that's just MHO, be sure you edit, edit, edit.

Andre_Laurent · Oct 12, 2006

I spent four months on the first draft. I have almost four months in my first round of revisions/edits and I'm almost ready for round two. I hope the second round of revisions/edits goes quicker but if not, oh well. I'll do this until I'm happy with it.

Qelenhn · Oct 12, 2006

Well, KayP pretty much defined rewriting and editing the way I use the terms. I'd say that I consider rewriting part of writing, because entirely new material is produced to replace or add to whatever was in the first draft. I tend to lump revision in with editing, because it is mostly changing existing scenes. I've not yet gotten past the writing stage successfully, but I certainly hope the revising and editing stage is shorter. I should finally get there once I finish the current rewrite of my WIP.

Julie Worth · Oct 12, 2006

KiwiChick said:
I'm just curious how long everyone else spends editing relative to writing the first draft.

First draft takes about six weeks (and I rewrite and edit as I go, every day). The bulk of the rewriting takes another sixteen weeks, though I may be doing other projects simultaneously.

Jamesaritchie · Oct 12, 2006

ime

The first draft usually takes four to six months, depending on the length of the novel. But regardless of how long the first draft takes, the second draft shouldn't take longer than four to six weeks. If it does, I did something drastically wrong in the first draft. A final polish should take no longer than a week or two.

From the editor side of me, revising, rewriting, and editing are vastly different things. Revising literally means "seeing with a new vision." It means changing the plot, changing the characters, etc.

Rewriting merely means changing something so it reads better. It says the same thing, but says it better. I rewrite clunky sentences and poor dialogue, but I seldom need to revise them.

Editing is mostly making sure the grammar and punctuation and word choice are correct, and tightening for maximum effect.

I revise very little after the first draft is fisnished because I pay strict attention to such matters while writing the first draft. I do not want to have to change plot or characters or anything major later on.

Scrawler · Oct 12, 2006

I'm spending three or four times as long editing, though I'd probably call it rewriting, revising, rewriting, revising, rewriting, revising, rewriting, revising... I'm with Arkie- I'm probably going to get to 10 drafts before I'm proud of it.

kuatolives · Oct 12, 2006

Only written one novel but,

90 000 words

4 months first draft
2-3 weeks second draft
few days for third draft (where I am now).

Excessive polishing causes my work to tarnish, not shine.

FergieC · Oct 13, 2006

First draft: 6-9 months (hard to tell with the most recent one as I was travelling at the time, so leaving it for quite long stretches while writing the first draft)

Revision: 3 months, but about half of that included leaving it alone completely due to a serious desire to burn it if I had to look at it any longer.

Re-writing / editing / polishing: will keep doing that sporadically until it either gets published or I give up on hoping it's publishable and move on. This is something it's fun to do while taking a break from the next project anyway though.

IrishScribbler · Oct 13, 2006

For my WIP, I had to do some editing as I went along because I was submitting a portion of it as my senior project for college, but I've been doing a lot more writing than editing.

Keep in mind that I consider outlining, notes about research, character bios, etc. all part of "writing", whereas "editing" is the red pen and rewriting.

Then again, it's still early in the process for me, so who knows? I'll keep you updated! *grin*

karo.ambrose · Oct 13, 2006

1st draft: april - august of this year (about 4 1/2 months give or take for 84,000 words)

2nd draft: august - right now (I'm assuming/hoping this draft will be done before thanksgiving... so that would be about 4 1/2 months as well)

laptop: cost- 1,200 dollars.
microsoft office for mac: cost- 15 dollars
nine months of work: haven't gotten paid a dime... and it was worth every penny

Prawn · Oct 16, 2006

It took me four months to write my first draft. I am now two weeks through my revision, and I am halfway through. Revision seems a lot harder than writing to me. The writing sometimes felt like fun, but the revision is not as fun. I think I will finish the first revision in another week or two, let it sit a few weeks, then spend another two or three weeks on a second revision, then give it to a beta reader. I am living for that moment, because revision seems too much like work to me.

Let me also mention that the revisoin is going faster the further I get in the book because I got better as I went and the story got tighter. Ch 5 is pretty stinky compared to Ch 25.

P

Southern_girl29 · Oct 16, 2006

I hate the revision process. My first novel took me a year and a half to write because I had to take some time off because of illness in the family. I revised and edited it in about a month. I now realize that it needs a lot of work, so I'm going to be rewriting it when I finish my WIP. I'm hoping to only take about a month to revise it, so I can get to work on my first novel.

PeeDee · Oct 16, 2006

I'm with James, way up there. I pride myself on writing a pretty tight first draft (something that comes out of writing serial stories for many years; you don't have eight months to tighten up your story, you have two weeks or so).

On my last novel, it took me four months to write it. It'll take me a month to do all that editing/revising jazz...because while I'm writing, I'm aware that there are things I need to add and subtract, things that need to be tightened, grammar and spelling problems. I spot most of 'em while I'm working on the first draft, I just don't do anything about it.

So when I go back to edit, I already know that Character X needs two more scenes to make sense, and I already know what the scenes are because I came up with them shortly after realizing they were needed.

......if I took four years to fix up a manuscript, I would hang myself I think.

editing to first draft ratio

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