Rewrite: when is it too long?

[Myridon]

As ambiguous as the title may be I have always wondered how long is too long when rewriting.

After a few weeks, few months, even years of tweaking and going back to a story does something chance in your life or in fact your writing style. Did you write a crime novella as a teen but found your way into romance and when you return to that book of your teens found that you just can't write your original vision?

I myself love to delve into multiple genres and I find myself writing differently all the time. I am currently revising/rewriting a fantasy novel I wrote a few months back. I revise on the night, during the day i am writing another novel. (busy me huh)

While I am rambling (this took a few re-dos) I guess I should get back to the original question.
How long is too long when rewriting?

[Intrapath]

I haven't been writing long enough to give a very concrete answer, but I think it depends on how your vision of what makes a good story has changed. For example, I spent 4 years editing and tweaking, revising and overhauling a single story until I made something that was both faithful to my original vision and was up to par with my storytelling standards once I released it. I'd say that balance is what determines that amount of time; if your standards and vision as a writer have changed too drastically, then it may be too much time.

[Myridon]

At 3/19/15 12:55 PM, LDAF wrote: I haven't been writing long enough to give a very concrete answer, but I think it depends on how your vision of what makes a good story has changed. For example, I spent 4 years editing and tweaking, revising and overhauling a single story until I made something that was both faithful to my original vision and was up to par with my storytelling standards once I released it. I'd say that balance is what determines that amount of time; if your standards and vision as a writer have changed too drastically, then it may be too much time.

cool man, I wrote three chapters of a book when I was seventeen, in the past four months I've finally been able to write it up, (77,000+ at the min) and its drastically different, the theme is the same but where the focus of the story is, is different. It also starts at a different point. its exciting sure. Just worried I was the only one ha ha ha. :)

[1sky1heart]

The best writings, the published ones that paid, are like a purge, you know: days of little sleep and hammering relentlessly at the keyboard, fingers too slow for the story that hurls from my thoughts. A compulsion that is like a hard grip that isn't going to let up until it's satiated.
The first book was like that, and finished in a week, six days all-told; the contract filed that month.

I know a lot of writers; very successful ones who swear by revision, reworking dusty ms, or weave something from a scrap of thought that strikes them as they're falling asleep; others pick away at a story for months or years and say that it unfolds, that they never know what the characters will do, choose, think, react to. Or they fill in piles of file cards -character traits, back stories, associations with other characters, draw elaborate maps, discuss plot and character development with spouses, friends, editors, whole rooms of others involved in the process. One guy talks problems over with his wife, also a writer, and claims she has got him out of quite a few corners over the years.

For me, if I have to wrestle with something and redraft, review, revise beyond simple editing, then it's something that feels forced into creation. The best stories are already born and look for the willing teller, I think. If I were to write over a length of time, to create as I write, I think I'd loose focus on the inventions of details, instead of being true to the story; but then, stories seem to come to me in a flash from start to finish, maybe that's not common.

But then. Other writers that I have known and talked to, those who take months or a year to write a story, they seem measured and have hours of life outside their writing. When I'm involved with the process there isn't anything left of me to spare and the writing is the focus and much else has to wait.

From what other writers tell me, it seems everyone has their own pace, zone, and objective. A comment they have all made is that staying engaged with the writing and reaching an end goal that feels satisfying and like a step in development and growth as a writer is the reward. Whether anyone else or any publisher likes it, is a moot point, really; who do we write for if not for ourselves?

[The-Great-One]

That is quite the question you have put forth and something I actually want to write on, thanks for the inspiration and the eventual headache I will receive in writing it. As for a short answer though I actually did write a crime novella in my teens. I typed it up, printed it out and had it bound. It is still sitting on my bookshelf to this day.

I originally wrote my crime novella entitled Butler in 2004. As I was editing it (which pro tip never do the first edit yourself let someone else read it first) I was tweaking something here, changing this, which made this outcome even worse and therefore I trashed it.

It was an idea with characters I still liked though so in 2005 I decided to try and write it again and this time I finished it and was looking to go on with a full series, but it didn't play out that well and once again through tweaking two books now with continuity issues I trashed them both.

2006 rolls around and I started writing short stories and poetry. A lot of it which I ended up hating in the end. There were some gems here and there, one which I still have and I am still pretty proud of entitled Beneath These Minds which I have gone back and forth on sharing here. I thought about Butler again and decided to try and write it again... and only got one page in and gave up.

2007 was when I was going through a point in my life in which if I didn't have Newgrounds and the friendly strangers on here I probably wouldn't be typing this part. I wrote Butler again, keeping only three of the original characters and pretty much starting from scratch which was a big mistake. Truthfully when you are in a dark place some really interesting works can come forth, Heart of Darkness is a great demonstration of this. What I wrote was brutal and grotesque that when I looked back over it I despised it with every being in my body. It would be thrown away like the rest.

Things got better for me in 2008. I was graduating from high school early so I didn't need to stay for the final semester which was cool, but I was isolated from my friends on a regular basis at this point. Which gave me more time to write. I started writing Butler again during the school year in 2008 and had people reading it. They were liking it. As I kept going back over it though I still wasn't liking it. I finished it though and it sits on my bookshelf, but I am still not proud of it and I want to re-write it.

To be honest with you I don't know the answer to this question. Hopefully though I'll figure it out in time.

[Myridon]

At 3/23/15 02:11 AM, The-Great-One wrote: To be honest with you I don't know the answer to this question. Hopefully though I'll figure it out in time.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who goes back to stories and finds new better things to do with them. I am currently doing a long collection of stories based on one I got published. I always felt there was more so I got back into that world and have just expanded, expanded, expanded.