How Long Do You Let a Draft Sit?

I just dive in. I've found that my later opinions aren't always better than my present opinions.

Finish a chapter, revise a chapter.

Finish a book, turn around and edit the book.

Waiting's overrated.

Bartholomew said:

I just dive in. I've found that my later opinions aren't always better than my present opinions.

Click to expand...

interesting.


i didnt think mine were either, until it was too late.


in an ideal world, 6 months, then another six months, then a year.


but in the real world, a week.

Paul, who is reckless beyond belief and is ripping off Maryn

Bartholomew said:

I just dive in. I've found that my later opinions aren't always better than my present opinions.

Click to expand...

Ditto. I usually start editing the day after I finish a draft. (Though I do some editing as I go, too.)

Cyia said:

Finish a chapter, revise a chapter.

Finish a book, turn around and edit the book.

Waiting's overrated.

Click to expand...

Same here.

It's like clay for me. The longer I wait, the more it sets, and the harder it gets for me to change anything.

That "distance" thing doesn't do it for me.

I usually wait until the next day. How long has it been since you read the first half of the book? Is that long enough?

When you start selling novels, waiting can be problematic, anyway. Publishers want the book when they want it, not when you're through waiting it out.

About a month. Gives me time to recharge my batteries, work on smaller pieces and time for the book to feel 'fresh' when I return to it.

About a week at the most. But typically, a day or two after the first draft's complete, and then I get to revising and editing.

I do a first-pass edit, then let it sit 4-6 weeks before picking it up again. It always amazes me, the things that pop out after ignoring it for that long.

Between draft 1 and two, a month. I've just started editing again after a gap of two months [have written 40,000 have the next book in between] and I'm doing a Holly Lisle style edit.

I've actually taken some advice to edit the chapters out of order [do a raffle draw of chapter numbers.] It's fantastic. The first chapter I drew was 17, and it was terrible. The first few chapters and the end usually get that kind of attention, but by halfway you become blind. I'm going to do this technique from now on.

I don't wait. Usually there's not enough time for that, anyway, once you're under contract.

Jamesaritchie said:

When you start selling novels, waiting can be problematic, anyway. Publishers want the book when they want it, not when you're through waiting it out.

Click to expand...

aadams73 said:

I don't wait. Usually there's not enough time for that, anyway, once you're under contract.

Click to expand...

Agreed.

aadams73 said:

I don't wait. Usually there's not enough time for that, anyway, once you're under contract.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that.

I'm an impatient bugger anyway. Even when I started out writing, I could only make myself wait a few days at the most before I started reading through for "editing" (what I did back then shouldn't really be called editing -- it was more like polishing turds ).

But I've learned to make it mostly right the first time through. Just because I'm impatient and can't be bothered to take another week or month after I finish a book to keep playing with it.

YMMV, etc.

Anywhere from a day to a month, depending on the project. Sometimes I have more leeway to let a book sit before going back in, and sometimes I don't. Likewise, I may not always be able to jump directly into revisions on that particular book because something else needs my attention first.

A couple weeks.

Or, if I'm alternating projects, it might be longer. A couple months.

I think there's benefit to letting your work sit, so you can get some mental distance from it. But since I don't edit until I'm done with a draft, I'm usually able to dive right in because it will have been months since I looked at the first scenes, etc.

How Long Do You Let a Draft Sit?

Until all the foam is dispersed, but before it gets to room temperature...

I don't. There's no point.

I wait a month, but it's imperative I work on something else in the meanwhile.

The point of doing that is I need to forget what I meant to say so I can see what I actually did say.

It's amazing how many missed words (as in, I forgot to type them) I find once I stop remembering what I intended to type.

The same holds true for description of the scene; it's so vivid in my head that I have to plug a different image into my head for a while before I begin to see all the places where the reader hasn't been given enough detail.

Ten minutes

Srsly

I'm glad I'm not the only one that dives straight into edits