i don’t mean are you writing and then showing it to others.
I mean as you are writing are you presenting yourself the author the story.
like not write and review. but at the same time.
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Yes. I’m writing with the idea of entertaining myself and going with the flow.
yes but are you telling yourself the story or are you showing yourself the story?
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Telling the story for the most part.
if you want to develop the story as you write and not in drafts or outlines. you gotta show not tell
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I understand that much. I do try to get a bit better at showing and not telling.
The thing is that I don’t edit what I write. I just rewrite better or differently.
okay earlier i didn’t say show don’t tell. i said immerse don’t present.
this is how I imagine your writing process is tell me if I’m wrong. you tell yourself the story but there isn’t a lot of description or actions maybe no description or minimal actions . then you go back in and you see how can you convert stuff to descriptions/ actions?
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So, when I edit, I just need to change areas that need some description and action in it?
no. I am asking if that was your process?
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i mean sure you can do it that way; but i thought you didn’t want to develop the story through editing… so it would sort of defeat the purpose of your whole aim lol
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Oh, I got confused. Sorry about that.
I just write. Once I am done with the story, I don’t go back to edit anything, I just start a new draft by writing something a bit different. Rewriting the story to fit how I want it to go in my mind. It’s never quite as close, but it is close enough.
I’m not great at description and action scenes. I struggle with describing things in a showy way because I don’t know the best words and ways to place them in a sentence.
I suck at that. I don’t have a clear process if I am being honest.
i mean you said as you write, you rewrite at the same time? like you will write a sentence or a pargraph; not like it and go back and fix it?
unless i misunderstood
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I rewrite the whole story in a new yet different draft.
ah got it. okay so you don’t mind developing the story through editing as long as the draft isn’t complete?
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Sorta. The only issue is that I am doing any editing or revising with the draft. I just go immediately to rewrite a new draft. I don’t work on the first draft through editing and revising then writing the story with the new edits and revisions. I simply write a whole new draft in a new yet different light.
I did that with Project Succession and I am on draft four.
Sorry for not explaining properly.
ohhh got it. okay so then it sounds like that process doesn’t work for what you are trying to do.
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Yeah, but every time I do that, each draft feels like a rough first draft since I get rid of editing and revising aspects.
Each newly rewritten draft is not edited or revised, just written in a new light and sloppily.
That is my eternal gripe. I don’t edit and revise when I should at least attempt to.
lets recenter
what was your aim: to have the story fully developed.
what had you tried:
outlining
rewriting / editing as you go along
developing through drafts
why didn’t those work:
outlining: taxing, it felt overwhelming to live up to the expectations of the outline
rewriting/ editing as you go along: you get distracted(?) and instead end up writing a whole new story that is loosely connected to the first
developing through drafts: you end up writing a whole new story that is loosely connected to the first.
so now given that history
you have a new aim which is to: have the story developed on the first draft without an outline, without rewriting as you write, and not through editing.
what are you trying
ruminating on why the strategies for your prior aim didn’t work for an aim that excludes them.
now my thoughts.
so imo; your aim is to develop the story. you have two obstacles.
the first is when you have it developed through outlining and have to execute on it you feel intimidated
the second is when you don’t have an outline you start something new instead of developing,
i think in both cases you are intimdated by developing and avoiding it. in the first it is conscious and second it is unconscious. and then you beat yourself up, put pressure on yourself for the avoidance. which just makes the developing even more intimidating.
and so to deal with that you try to figure out/ find the most entertaining version where you will be so entertained that it will overcome all of that.
I think maybe why you are intimidating is holding onto this idea of the writer who is able to write effortlessly all the time or who is at the very least able to be effortlessly disciplined all the time- and trying to acchieve that. but both things are a fantasy, a mythos of writers for non writers
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I do write chapter summaries before I start the chapter.
Moving on, I guess I just love writing more than editing. I guess it’s a feeling of editing the story will take away from the joy of writing it. Like I want to write the same story in many different ways, because I love to write stories.
Which answers the question is publishing something I should aspire to do if I don’t want to try to edit and revise my work.
Will I truly be alright if I never publish anything because of that realization? I will still write, I will just never get to see what could’ve been.
But editing bothers me because I don’t understand how to edit and revise. I just only care about writing the story the way I see it in my head, then rewriting it a million different times to see if I will ever get to that point without doing edits and revisions.
when you say editing what do you mean precisely?
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