Drafts, via Barth
Apr. 21st, 2004 05:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanaiseWhee! Figured out how to post in here without logging Dena out. I'm crafty!
Anyways, from a chat in the Ratbastards' Nightshade group about drafts (inspired by a post by Barth, my contribution to the drafts discussion, and then I'm off to see if I can't buy something so I have exact change for the bus.
Hmm. I usually start with a scene, leave it sitting around for months on end (quite often years, depending on the scene), and then come back to it at some point and write more/the whole story. I don't usually start saving variations on drafts until after I've written the whole thing. Towards the last half of the story, I give it its own folder. Once I start changing things around dramatically, then I start giving them dates in their titles. Or rename them repeatedly. One of my stories has drafts of 4 different names, I think, before I finally went back to my first title.
Of course, the only story I've sold as of yet, Wounds, had two drafts. I wrote it, put it up on the workshop, came back a week later and revised it, and sent it out, and sold it. Though, considering how few things I've finished since then, it's probably something I should take as yet another reminder to keep writing new things, and spend less time fixing older stories. If only I had new stories to write. I should go through my piles of scenes and see if I've figured out any stories recently.
I think it's just easier for me to see where I want older stories to be going than it is to see where new stories are headed, and revising, for me, takes less...not thought, but dedicated time--I can put it down and pick it up later--and I seem to have lost most of my attention span lately.
As far as finding scenes at a later date--god bless the find files 'included text' function. because every once in a while, I say to myself, "you know, that passage you wrote 7 years ago about lobsters, it would fit here so perfectly. I can't believe you don't remember what you called the file after 7 years. You're worthless. Don't talk to me anymore." But luckily, I can just look up 'lobsters.' or other such keywords, and find the story I'm looking for. Proof, obviously, that you should always put a really weird word in every story so you can find it later on.
Anyways, from a chat in the Ratbastards' Nightshade group about drafts (inspired by a post by Barth, my contribution to the drafts discussion, and then I'm off to see if I can't buy something so I have exact change for the bus.
Hmm. I usually start with a scene, leave it sitting around for months on end (quite often years, depending on the scene), and then come back to it at some point and write more/the whole story. I don't usually start saving variations on drafts until after I've written the whole thing. Towards the last half of the story, I give it its own folder. Once I start changing things around dramatically, then I start giving them dates in their titles. Or rename them repeatedly. One of my stories has drafts of 4 different names, I think, before I finally went back to my first title.
Of course, the only story I've sold as of yet, Wounds, had two drafts. I wrote it, put it up on the workshop, came back a week later and revised it, and sent it out, and sold it. Though, considering how few things I've finished since then, it's probably something I should take as yet another reminder to keep writing new things, and spend less time fixing older stories. If only I had new stories to write. I should go through my piles of scenes and see if I've figured out any stories recently.
I think it's just easier for me to see where I want older stories to be going than it is to see where new stories are headed, and revising, for me, takes less...not thought, but dedicated time--I can put it down and pick it up later--and I seem to have lost most of my attention span lately.
As far as finding scenes at a later date--god bless the find files 'included text' function. because every once in a while, I say to myself, "you know, that passage you wrote 7 years ago about lobsters, it would fit here so perfectly. I can't believe you don't remember what you called the file after 7 years. You're worthless. Don't talk to me anymore." But luckily, I can just look up 'lobsters.' or other such keywords, and find the story I'm looking for. Proof, obviously, that you should always put a really weird word in every story so you can find it later on.
From Becca re Publication
Date: 2004-04-21 07:02 am (UTC)