Editing older stories - is it worth doing?

[BuckyDuckman]

Traffic? Age of the story doesn't seem to matter. I get very old stories favorited and a few comments.

Two or three of my older ones should be deleted or substantially rewritten. I'm not going to do that. I've left them as a reminder to do better.

Pride? I suppose part of it is pride of workmanship, but if I'm thinking about workmanship then the major rewrites should be done.

I have so many plot bunnies reproducing that I'm not going to rewrite older ones.

I think your answer is found in these few lines, especially the part of your post that I made bold. If it bothers you, the creator, then fix it.

As for me, I do the best I can - but I'm more interested in chasing down a new plot bunny than I am with grooming an old one. Besides, I can't chase down a dropped word or missed letter without resisting the urge re-work the entire story. If you can do that, you're more disciplined than me.

 

[oggbashan]

I think your answer is found in these few lines, especially the part of your post that I made bold. If it bothers you, the creator, then fix it.

As for me, I do the best I can - but I'm more interested in chasing down a new plot bunny than I am with grooming an old one. Besides, I can't chase down a dropped word or missed letter without resisting the urge re-work the entire story. If you can do that, you're more disciplined than me.

One missing letter doesn't really bother me. Anything substantially wrong I would have edited out years ago.

More disciplined? Perhaps lazier. There are a couple of stories I should rewrite but they were posted in 2002 and actually written in the mid 90s. I'm not going to touch them.

New plot bunnies? I breed them. If I sit down with a blank page of a notebook and think of plots, I can produce twenty in a quarter of an hour. I used to do that when waiting at the dentist, but I stopped. I could produce far more than I could write.

But it has been interesting to read other people's views on editing posted stories. My default had been to leave the errors alone. There aren't many in my stories because they tend to be reasonably error-free when first posted.

My recent contest story Jeanie the Genie made me think because I saw the error I had made within minutes of hitting the submit button. What I had done was cut and paste some text after a Preview but I had lost a significant sentence. The error was that I had said that genies in bottles were invisible to other genies, but later on Jeanie the Genie knew where five bottled genies were. There was an explanation for her knowing about those five - but I'd deleted it! The edited version now provides the reasoning.

 

[sr71plt]

EDITING is a writer's life, Oggbashan. I would not shirk it, not for an instance. It is only through editing and upgrading do you become a critical writer, one that does not accept difficulties or problems in your stories.

Perhaps, but in the real publishing world, the writer's editing all comes before the writer submits it for publishing consideration. An author who keeps sending in rewrites gets dumped quickly.

 

[sr71plt]

And I have thought for a long time that when a name like OGG or TX Rad or DG Hear or Pilot....etc....pops up in the que it just gets published without a glance. I don't think any time is spent on the stories of long time members with no track record of 'pushing things' content wise.

Only maybe half right in my case. I had one rejected recently--twice--before getting through as written on the challenge to actually justify the reason to reject based on what was written in the story. So, my stories, at least, aren't just passed through without checking, but they probably are processed without much reading of what's there.

Whatever time spent to process each story, when you keep sending in corrections to your story because you didn't take time to do it to your ultimate satisfaction to begin with, that's you forcing Laurel and other authors to suffer YOUR problem.

A., there's no such thing as perfect copy, B. most of your readers will have read before it can get corrected, and C. this ain't the New Yorker. And you'll be less sloppy to begin with if you limit what you'll bother other folks with in corrections.

 

[nymph817]

Perhaps, but in the real publishing world, the writer's editing all comes before the writer submits it for publishing consideration. An author who keeps sending in rewrites gets dumped quickly.

You are correct here. That is why I will never publish my books. Because I will =ALWAYS= want to edit them. A vicious cycle, yes ? But there is a certain satisfaction in saying, "Hey. I forgot this." Or, "Wow, I could add this !"

You can't do that with truly published works.

 

[nymph817]

One missing letter doesn't really bother me. Anything substantially wrong I would have edited out years ago.

More disciplined? Perhaps lazier. There are a couple of stories I should rewrite but they were posted in 2002 and actually written in the mid 90s. I'm not going to touch them.

New plot bunnies? I breed them. If I sit down with a blank page of a notebook and think of plots, I can produce twenty in a quarter of an hour. I used to do that when waiting at the dentist, but I stopped. I could produce far more than I could write.

But it has been interesting to read other people's views on editing posted stories. My default had been to leave the errors alone. There aren't many in my stories because they tend to be reasonably error-free when first posted.

My recent contest story Jeanie the Genie made me think because I saw the error I had made within minutes of hitting the submit button. What I had done was cut and paste some text after a Preview but I had lost a significant sentence. The error was that I had said that genies in bottles were invisible to other genies, but later on Jeanie the Genie knew where five bottled genies were. There was an explanation for her knowing about those five - but I'd deleted it! The edited version now provides the reasoning.

I make errors like that sometimes, Oggbashan. Usually I'm really quick to correct them before someone notices. I like the fact you can edit posts in here.

I'm not too happy that we are using an entirely different server for stories. Imagine the wealth of reading that could be done here in the forums, and with the ability to edit to your heart's content. Such a gift - I guess we will never have.