How Much Tinkering?

Try Inkpad on Android

John988 said:

... I come up with a rough outline of a plot and vague conceptions of the big scenes, then go straight into writing it. My stories are generally developed a couple paragraphs at a time. I'll know pretty much where the story needs to go, but the meat of it is created almost spontaneously... When I write, it's kinda like things just sorta... happen.

... I write stories in chunks, editing each chunk as I go. I tend to only read the entirety of my stories twice...

Click to expand...

This sounds just like my style, but LadyMireille had a brilliant tip too - Grammarly!
I'd never heard of it, but I'll be looking for it when I've finished this post.

Also, if we're into giving application tips...
I find my ideas come to me at random times, so I don't tie myself to an editor on a PC. I have a wonderful little App on my Android, called Inkpad Notepad. When I get an idea I simply jot it down in Inkpad. I even do most of my writing on the phone The beauty of this is - there is a sister Web site where you 'sync' the data, and when the work is finished you can copy and paste direct off the Web page into Word (or whatever).

I use Inkpad on both my phone (with me all the time) and my tablet (usually at home). When you do a 'Sync' (you get 10 syncs a day with the free version) whichever was updated most recently (web, tablet, phone) overwrites the corresponding 'note' on the other(s). I have dozens of 'notes' on the go at the same time. All you have to remember is - don't update any note in more than one location without doing a sync first (or you'll lose the edits on all but the most recently updated).

Bebop3 said:

How much tinkering do you allow yourself to engage in before publishing your story?

Editing my own work seems like a never ending process. I'm constantly finding better ways to phrase things and new bits to add.

When do you say enough is enough and publish what you're working on?

Click to expand...

I tend to write the first draft fairly quickly to get the story outline down as it is in my head.

From there I tend to beef up various parts with descriptions, dialogue etc.

I tend to run the spell checker each time I read the story again and when doing this I tend to start from the beginning each day to ensure continuity and to make sure I don't confuse facts, places colours etc.

From there I read the story daily for about a week making any subtle changes I think are necessary and then submit.

I do find that the mood I am in plays a part in how view things on the daily check so it does help to make sure that I have given it a fair review.

Sometimes it's been days.

I've written for magazines, many moons ago.

A rough draft, sometimes I think it's a load of rubbish,
so I rewrite it, try to whittle it down, make it more intense
and cut out as much waffle as I can.