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Can't stomach a hastily-written first draft. Anyone else?
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I don't understand that at all. That's what later revisions are for, and for me, when the story is more solid. Who in the world would call a first draft complete? Let alone send it out.
I don't understand that at all. That's what later revisions are for, and for me, that's after the story is more solid because of the "messy" first draft. Who in the world would call a first draft complete, let alone send it out? Neither do I understand what you mean by "conventional wisdom." Getting the story down? That can't at all be something "bad" by any means. A preferred or not-preferred method, yes, but nothing at all wrong with it.
No offense to your methods intended. Which of many "that's" do you mean? "...for my own writing" applies to my first paragraph, and in my second, I give personal experience as an editor getting lots of unpolished early drafts.
Not sure what you mean by conventional wisdom. I don't believe there are conventions just different approach that suit different type of writers, some prefer to edit as they go along, others prefer to get the first draft out of the way first and then start heavy revision and editing.
Personally I believe that the only draft that matters is the last one, before that you can have a couple or you can have 50 drafts from the moment the last one if the best version possible it's what matters.
When you make a number of small changes rapidly as you revise the same short passage (a page or less), re-reading and revising before or even while adding new material.
Some writers do this to the point of reaching their penultimate or final draft of the passage in question before adding substantial amounts of new material.
It's one of the standard kinds of writing process; neither better or worse than any other, but one that many writers use.
Someone who gets the story down on the first pass, making sure that everything that happens is logically consistent with everything that has come before.
If you write as above, there are no changes needed when you get to the end. (Nor is this process necessarily slow, for some writers.)
Apologies for being unclear. The first paragraph is your choice; there's no need for me to question it. I meant the second paragraph because I'm still a bit confused by "receiving unpolished early drafts," and believe I'm missing something. Thus, the "why on earth would anybody send out an unpolished draft?" question.
I'm speaking only for my personal preference: to get the story down, no matter how "terrible," then clean it up with the assurance that I didn't waste time editing early just to possible delete something that I may have spent quite a bit of time on the first time around. I don't even think about sending anything out that I don't feel is properly revised, and don't understand who would, regardless of their preferred method to get there.
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You wonder who would do that, send out an unrevised draft of anything. If people read.. AT ALL... they must see that books don't contain utterly unpolished work?
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People who think their work is perfect and doesn't *need* polishing. Call it ego or lack of objectivity; I've seen it play out both ways.
The notion that a rough and messy first draft is an inevitable part of the process is so commonly assumed and touted (by writers and teachers of writing) that it's become conventional wisdom. I.e., you hear it everywhere. But like much conventional wisdom, it represents a limited view. Because clearly there are many ways to write a novel.
I had no idea that people actually would do that with a 'spill your guts and polish later' draft.
I can understand if someone has the process of polishing up as much as they can as they go, their first draft might work well.
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I don't think they really see it as a "spill your guts and polish later" draft. The writers I've encountered like this genuinely think what they're putting on the page is perfect from the start, and aside from a quick clean-up to catch typos, doesn't need any polishing.
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I'm on a Facebook NaNo group, and more than one writer there has announced they're self-publishing the novel they wrote in November.
I'm sure some of these books aren't bad, and have real potential. It's even possible one or two of them are perfectly polished, although I think that's a longshot. And if the writer just wants to see their book on Amazon and is satisfied with sales to family and book swaps, there's no harm in it, really.
The ones I worry about are the ones who believe they're launching a long-term successful publishing career, or that their decision to publish a "green" book won't have any affect on their chances to trade publish later - or might even help them. These people are making a serious business decision without really understanding the ramifications.
If there's one thing I've learned about self-publishing, it's that to do it well you have to understand all the pros and cons for every specific project you're planning to publish. I fear too many newbies see it as a fast track to publishing success, when the reality is it requires at least as much effort (and usually time) as a trade deal.
Wow, that is some confidence. I've never had that sort of confidence in anything in my life
Thinking on though, perhaps an incredibly experienced writer COULD do that.
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Well, I was happy with sales to mates and family, but I put an enormous amount of work into my book anyway - had beta readers and a fairly ruthless person operating as an editor (she was awesome). I guess I can't really get my head around the idea of 'live' testing a work that way.
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Me either! I agonize just putting stuff up on SYW.
And to be clear, it sounds like you knew what you were doing with self-pubbing. (My original ambition was to self-pub and sell to at least 20 people I didn't know IRL.)
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Wow, that is some confidence. I've never had that sort of confidence in anything in my life
Thinking on though, perhaps an incredibly experienced writer COULD do that.
They probably stand a better chance of it than an inexperienced writer, yes. But even then, I'd be skeptical. My experience has been that the less a writer thinks they need an editor, the more they actually need one. Ditto with those convinced their drafts are flawless.
I mean, you do get better and cleaner with time, including your first drafts. I'm releasing my NaNo book in January, but a) it's like my 140th book and b) it's already been through two rounds with my editor, plus a visit to a sensitivity reader. Being 10 years and 100+ books has made me more efficient about catching my own errors (or preventing them to begin with) and applying revisions after my editor has gone through them. Was it cleaner than a draft I wrote earlier in my career? Definitely. Was it publication ready when I wrote The End? LOL NO. But time and practice have made the revision process smoother and faster.
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I have one chapter, of my original book i've shelved for now. It's a pretty good stand-alone chapter, and though it's mid-story, a vignette of sorts, its got enough descriptive in it that a new reader can make sense of it. I've always given this one out to perspective beta readers, people who insist on reading something i wrote, or offer to help. I think i finished it probably three years ago. I went over it thrice with a microscope before handing it out, and it was as perfect as i could make it. Next reader came along, months later, so i went over it again to send out. I found at least 3 spelling mistakes, and a sentence that just read wrong. A month later, another reader, went over it again, found another spelling mistake, and a whole paragraph that bugged me, so i revised it. MUCH better. Fourth time, a few punctuation mistakes and a bad sentence. Fifth time, another spelling mistake (and i'm an excellent speller!), more punctuation, and added something short to the dialogue it sorely needed. Sixth time the charm? Nope... yet more punctuation, and a POV glitch that needed addressing. BUT... it was as perfect as i could make it the first time. I wonder if established authors can even read their published books...
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My editor made me write an extra last chapter of my book when I thought I'd finished the bloody thing. Stupid thing was as soon as I tried to write it - sitting down muttering to myself 'what is she talking about?' - it came out of me almost all in one piece. And it really was the last chapter, even I could see that. So yes, quite frankly, it's all a mystery and how anyone can truly judge their own work is the biggest mystery of all.