Re-write Curiosity

[Winterscumming]

I am just curious. Do you ever rewrite parts or all of a story? If so, what do you do with the rewrites?

I'm am working on the second part of my latest posting. I have rewritten the opening four times. The fifth seems to be a keeper and is flowing nicely. The problem? I get attached to all of my works so I can't seem to delete the "discarded" alternate beginnings.

Posting the piece with multiple openings seems convoluted and messy. I did consider offering to email interested readers the alternate beginnings and have them email a vote on which they thought was better - just to keep it fun (for me). Butttt... I'm not sure if that is super weird.

So just curious... what do you do with your rewrites and alternate story pieces?

 

[SusanJillParker]

I am just curious. Do you ever rewrite parts or all of a story? If so, what do you do with the rewrites?

I'm am working on the second part of my latest posting. I have rewritten the opening four times. The fifth seems to be a keeper and is flowing nicely. The problem? I get attached to all of my works so I can't seem to delete the "discarded" alternate beginnings.

Posting the piece with multiple openings seems convoluted and messy. I did consider offering to email interested readers the alternate beginnings and have them email a vote on which they thought was better - just to keep it fun (for me). Butttt... I'm not sure if that is super weird.

So just curious... what do you do with your rewrites and alternate story pieces?

I never save any rewrites. I just write it over and again. Every time I rewrite the story, it gets better and longer.

Good luck with your story.

 

[jehoram]

So just curious... what do you do with your rewrites and alternate story pieces?

Some I just shit-can. Others I develop into another story. Sometimes the problem with the pieces is that while they're good, they just don't fit into the narrative of the story you're working on. File them away, and later on you may find a use for them.

The problem with many writers is that they're trying to tell too many stories at once. If the piece doesn't move the story along, maybe it's just not part of that story.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I've reposted a few with clean up. I respun a very short one that was part of a failed project into something longer. I've added chapters to some after long breaks. So far I've posted everything I've written, except for one that's just a few pages long and I'm not certain I want to develop.

So while I've expanded stuff, I've never radically changed an ending or did major retooling. Everything I do is HEA or heading there; no reason to rewrite them.

 

[sr71plt]

I've never rewritten in the vein of taking a lot of material out. Even in review, I'm adding rather than taking out. I do occasionally rewrite a story from straight to gay or vice versa and publish the two separately and, usually, under different pen names.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Everything ends up in my parts box.

My present effort includes a posted incest story now a wicked landlady. The besy writers do the same. Saves writing the same thing twice. Detroit does the same, you can damn near make a Chevy a Buick.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Not yet. I've stalled on a few stories, where something just wasn't working or I did not become engaged enough with a character to continue. I doubt I'll re-use any of the material - if I'm bored with it now, I'll be bored with it in the future. It becomes a curiosity file. If I've not read it for a year or so, it's unlikely to ever get read again. Delete.

 

[weftandwarp]

I am just curious. Do you ever rewrite parts or all of a story? If so, what do you do with the rewrites?

I'm am working on the second part of my latest posting. I have rewritten the opening four times. The fifth seems to be a keeper and is flowing nicely. The problem? I get attached to all of my works so I can't seem to delete the "discarded" alternate beginnings.

Posting the piece with multiple openings seems convoluted and messy. I did consider offering to email interested readers the alternate beginnings and have them email a vote on which they thought was better - just to keep it fun (for me). Butttt... I'm not sure if that is super weird.

So just curious... what do you do with your rewrites and alternate story pieces?

I only keep the final draft. There can be more than a hundred drafts to get there. I have problems with disjointedness. I always have gaps between reviews- one at least has to be a month or more where I don't look at it at all. The last thing I do is delete the opening sentence. For some reason the story is always much better with out it. I also hunt for fancy language to delete because it obviously hasn't been sustained and if it stands out it's making the rest of it look bad. In spite of my best efforts some stories have got out and, regretfully, looked bad.

 

[My I]

I've seen some authors here re-write the same story over and over with different names and places and re-submit it as a new story.

Well that's what it seems like anyway. Some of them have a dozen stories that read so much alike you sometimes can't tell if it's a new story or you're still reading the last one.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I have rewritten one story twice now. It's been published under three different titles, but only once here.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I've seen some authors here re-write the same story over and over with different names and places and re-submit it as a new story.

Well that's what it seems like anyway. Some of them have a dozen stories that read so much alike you sometimes can't tell if it's a new story or you're still reading the last one.

We liberals like to re-cycle things.

 

[My I]

We liberals like to re-cycle things.

Don't get me started.

 

[Green_Knight]

The Story of O has two beginnings although the second consists of only half a paragraph which immediately leads into the combined story. The differences between the two are quite subtle but redefine the character and role of René, O's lover, which may significantly influence the way you read the rest of the story.

Lots of books have two endings, which can create problems when they are adapted for film. John Fowle's The French Lieutenant's Woman is one that comes to mind, perhaps more for the way the film handled the dual ending.

Such a dual beginning/end forces a choice on the reader – which do you want to believe. My thoughts are that most Lit readers aren't looking for such literary devices. A lot of them don't even want to have to use their imaginations to fill in gaps. They want it spelled out. They just want the sex, not the subtlety. They want to be told, not to have to think. Low IQ rules these days.

I often rewrite stories before they're published, regularly reordering scenes or moving them from chapter to chapter. I may remove scenes from a story if they don't fit happily into the narrative, to be filed away as a potential scene in another story or even for use as the basis of a new story. Longer is not necessarily better. I rarely discard anything, though – even if it was just a single sentence idea, it'll have a use somewhere.

 

[jehoram]

I've seen some authors here re-write the same story over and over with different names and places and re-submit it as a new story.

Didn't Barbara Cartland make an entire career out of that?

 

[Nezhul]

You can post them as extras. Either after the end of your story or as a separate submissions. They do it in movies with "deleted scenes" - I don't see why books are any different.

 

[Zodia195]

The very first novel I wrote, it took me longer to edit it than write it out because of all the issues I had with it. I didn't rewrite it all, but I did add to it. The biggest change was the first chapter. I added much more to it and wanted the readers to see what 'regular life' was like for my main character before her life changed. Also throughout the story, I added more content, including flashbacks of my main character's past life since they play a significant role in her present life. Overall I am very happy with The Lost One. Probably is the most personal piece in my collection of stories since I wanted the main characters' struggles to be reminiscent of my own personal struggles, like finding her identity.