I’ve been busy with my latest project that I’m calling Cruise Control. No one likes that name including me. But here’s the deal. I’m writing along, and then I realize, I’ve completely forgotten what I did with X in a previous chapter. Now some writers can bookmark the issue and keep writing. Just get it down, fix it later.
I try. Really I do. I even wish I could.
But it’s like a fish bone caught in a cat’s throat. CAak!. CAaak! CAaaaak!!
It must be remedied. Now.
So I confess, I’ve been doing more rewriting lately than writing. In chapter 8, he walks in the back door to the living room, but when she walks in the back door via chapter 21, suddenly she’s in the kitchen. No the DIY House Crashers didn’t remodel between chapters. I just blew it. And it must be remedied. Now.
All the advice books tell you to plow on, but I need to go back and straighten my furrows. Otherwise, my seeds may not grow as lush as I hope. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll forget about it.
Or maybe I’m just neurotic. That’s a distinct possibility.
In the mean time, I plow on just not always forward. I like driving in reverse, too.
How about you? Can you resist the urge to fix your work as you go?
P.S. Photo by antkriz
I am totally with Greg. I leave it, unless it is a stupid error, and plow on. Like Greg said, you never know which scenario will work out best until you reach the end. I highlight it and make a comment so that when I go through future edits, I don’t blow past and forget all about it.
I wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, I could barely finish a sentence without editing it.
Raid the fridge; move to the parlor and raid the liquor cabinet; study the family portraits while sipping some smooth cognac.
Hmm, maybe I’ll try that. And the smooth cognac
Thanks, Joshua.
I write out a two or three line synopsis on each chapter before starting. Then, I write. Chapter by chapter, as long as I get in two characters meeting, or something blowing up, whatever I had planned for that chapter, as long as it’s in, I just keep writing. And I write in long hand.
Once done, I type it all up, and that’s when the editing starts. Does this go with that, does this make sense, did he actually say that back in chapter 2 etc. I sort it all out once it’s all in the word doc and then just go through it, and through it, and through it until I’m bored and think it’s time to send off to someone for a ms assessment. And when I get it back, I go through it again and again an again until it’s time to set up for CS and Smashwords and needs a cover and a blurb and God I could keep going and going and going…..
We had a saying in manufacturing: at some point you have to shoot the engineer and ship the product.
See, I never know until I finish writing the book whether it is better to have the kitchen or the living room at the back of the house. And if you are not sure of that then how do you correct it? Will the climactic scene work better if the protagonist solves the crime by studying the family portrait on the parlor wall, or by raiding the fridge?
So no, I do not change much until I am done.
Raiding the fridge is always a good idea . . .