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good method or just lazy?

Lone Wolf

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At times I get hit by an inspiration and I'll jot down a paragraph or two to be incorporated into my WIP. I write it down the way it comes to me. I know it can be better written but I tend to put it away for later, hoping I'll find it easier to polish up at a later date.
I might justify this by citing examples of writers saying they do a rough first draft, not worrying about getting the words exactly right, until looking with fresh eyes much later.

Is what I'm doing best practice or am I just being lazy by putting off rewriting it until some other time?
Is it easier to rewrite with fresh eyes, or when the thought is fresh?
 

neandermagnon

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If it works for you it's not lazy. "It works" includes not storing up a bunch of work you're going to struggle to do later on. As far as I know, most writers don't revise and edit their work as they go along, they write the whole first draft then go back and edit it. I've commonly heard writers advise against editing as you go. I always thought I was one of the odd ones for editing as I go. Editing as I go works for me because in order to not lose the plot (both literally and figuratively) I need to keep on rereading what I've already written and if I didn't tidy it up a bit (or a lot) as I do this, it would be too painful to reread. I also would find it a bit overwhelming to try and fix the whole entire thing in one go after I get to the end. But this is by far not the only way to edit. Everyone's got to do what works for them.
 

Bufty

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If that's the way you find works for you to keep hold of passing ideas, who is to say otherwise?

The time to polish up such snippets is either when you find somewhere to use them or when you have nothing else to do.
 

Animad345

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I don't think it's remotely lazy. It happens to me all the time!

I'll be playing with a scene in my head, but it won't fit into the part of the novel that I'm currently writing. Instead, I just open another document and type the scene out for later. Works fine for me.
 

Klope3

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I'll echo neandermagnon and Bufty--if it works, use it. But you have to decide whether it actually does work.

Are you just throwing lots of loosely related scenes together whenever it strikes your fancy? If so, you're probably going to have to rewrite most of it later on, or at least hack away extensively at it, to make it into a cohesive story. This could double the time it takes for you to get to a draft that seems polished enough to send to an editor or beta-readers.

On the other hand, if you're crippled by writer's block when you try to write in a more controlled way, maybe the above method actually would be faster in the end. Better to spend 6 months writing and rewriting than 2 years plodding through at a snail's pace.

My compromise is to follow my outline all the way through the draft, and toss all my random thoughts into a "Revision Ideas" documents as I go. Then, after I've finished my draft according to the outline, I can choose what to do with all that brainstorming later.
 

Chronodendron

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I do the exact same thing. It's not lazy, at all.

Is it easier to rewrite with fresh eyes, or when the thought is fresh?
Fresh eyes.

To quote Neil Gaiman:

Write down everything that happens in the story, and then in your second draft make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.

This sentence changed my life. I was never able to finish a project before because whenever I tried to write scenes 'properly' and in order I'd hit hall after hall until I gave up. It was too frustrating.
Now I write whatever comes to mind at a given time and worry about how to present it later. It might take more revisions but I believe the results are worth it. (and I love the revision process, when I get o connect all the dots!)
 

Paul Lamb

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Well, if that's lazy, then I'm a lazy writer too! I keep a notepad with me for exactly this purpose - to jot down ideas/epiphanies I have about whatever I'm working on (or wishing I was working on) and then add them to my WIP's Word file or folder for eventual reconsideration/possible use.

If it works, it works! (And don't seek justification by citing how other writers work; work your process and eventually people will be citing you as having a great process!

I also edit as I go, and I've never found anything bad about this. Often I'm still "discovering" what my story is about as I am writing it, so what came before may no longer belong or may need revision so that it does belong.
 

angeliz2k

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I don't know how this would be lazy.

I write down snippets all the time. There's no point in polishing them, because I haven't slotted them into a paragraph/scene/story, and I can't know exactly how it will fit until I do so. That would be like . . . finishing both edges of the cloth for a seam, sewing them together, and then finishing it off again. (Sorry, I've been sewing quite a bit recently.)
 

K.S. Crooks

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Don't fight inspiration when it comes. Do what you can, with the understanding that more will come when you mind has time to process. In a sense your entire story is a momentary spark of inspiration that you then need to work through over an extended period of time.
 

talktidy

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If a scene comes to me, no matter if it fits into my WIP, I write it -- it's one reason the project I'm working on is a sprawling mess -- I try to write and not worry about choosing the precise word and leaving blank spaces where the word I want won't come. Even though the missing words do not sit right with me at the time, I try to ride that wave of inspiration and get that scene down on the page and then leave it to marinate.

Later, when I come back to review it, I can see whether the scene has legs, or whether it is just noise and of no worth.
 

Sage

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Many many authors subscribe to having a first draft where they don't stop to polish the words they're writing down. In fact, many find that polishing as they go can lead to WIPs never getting finished. One piece of advice given to many people who can't get past their first chapter is to just write the novel and worry about perfecting it later.

I am a person who worries about the first draft. If it's not to a certain quality, I probably won't work on it later. So my first drafts can be pretty polished, but that's not even remotely saying that there's not a lot of editing needed.

You're going to have to edit anyway. Write the first draft the way that gets you your baseline story.
 

AW Admin

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Use what works for you and the current book.
 

indianroads

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Many many authors subscribe to having a first draft where they don't stop to polish the words they're writing down. In fact, many find that polishing as they go can lead to WIPs never getting finished. One piece of advice given to many people who can't get past their first chapter is to just write the novel and worry about perfecting it later.

I am a person who worries about the first draft. If it's not to a certain quality, I probably won't work on it later. So my first drafts can be pretty polished, but that's not even remotely saying that there's not a lot of editing needed.

You're going to have to edit anyway. Write the first draft the way that gets you your baseline story.

I'm the same - mostly with word choices, overuse bugs me. I plot, so there are bullet points I'm following while writing, but I also have another doc open for notes, such as: MC to notice the air is thin in ch 7. I also pay attention to my characters speech patterns, which are only vaguely defined at the start of the first draft, so, I have another doc for used words / phrases (as in: Jack: "cold out, yah?" Mary:"it's frosty out here".
 

SamanthaDrake

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I'm someone who would probably not write if i worried about how it sounded when i first wrote it. it isn't lazy. Whatever works to get ideas flowing and the pen moving. Or keyboard clicking.
 

cool pop

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Whatever works for you is what you should do.

Most writers just write the first draft. I do. I do outline but I don't worry about the technical stuff during the first draft. I just want to get the story on paper. The editing stage is when I clean and polish. Some writers edit as they go. I can't do that. It would make no sense to me to do that because I let my work rest after doing the first draft. I don't finish a book and then edit. I let it rest for months and work on other things then I go back and edit that book. Nothing beats fresh eyes. My mind always comes back with improvements that make the work better after I've waited.

So for me, first draft is just getting the story down. The other stuff comes later.
 

StoryForest

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I usually try to write down as much as I can with each inspirational thought but wont spend too much time trying to get it perfect until later because intuition and logic doesn't always work together. So get the inspiration down first and then come back for the technical stuff.
 

Juggernaut

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At times I get hit by an inspiration and I'll jot down a paragraph or two to be incorporated into my WIP. I write it down the way it comes to me. I know it can be better written but I tend to put it away for later, hoping I'll find it easier to polish up at a later date.
I might justify this by citing examples of writers saying they do a rough first draft, not worrying about getting the words exactly right, until looking with fresh eyes much later.

Is what I'm doing best practice or am I just being lazy by putting off rewriting it until some other time?
Is it easier to rewrite with fresh eyes, or when the thought is fresh?

Hi,

I suggest definitely getting the idea down while you remember it.
I cannot tell you how many times I used my phone to record a voice memo (or google Keep memo) to jot down or record an idea that I know I would have forgotten about later. If I am not in a place where I can write, I still want to be able to remember, so I record it any way that I can.

Get it down and then worry about making it sound better later.

I hope this helps