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I'm a research scientist and professor at a university. We tolerate exactly this "rather curious approach" to research, of multiple refinements until we zero in on something interesting. We do expe...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:25Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36248 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T08:51:32Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36248 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
I'm a research scientist and professor at a university. We tolerate exactly this "rather curious approach" to research, of multiple refinements until we zero in on something interesting. We do experiment after experiment to find it. Do you realize how many different takes on the internal combustion engine were tried before Ford invented the engine block? Innumerable, by garage mechanics everywhere. Do you realize how many refinements it has had since then? The only thing fitting your metaphor in writing is publishing, and we can indeed spew out innumerable identical copies of a finished book very quickly. Writing is much like research and inventing something new. The first draft is the first experiment, to see if the story works or does not. The refinements are to make it work better. With practice you might be able to do something in one draft, but really that is just going to load most of the work into planning, detailed outlining and world-building and character building before you ever begin writing. It isn't going to change the amount of work it takes to invent everything.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-05-18T13:26:13Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 19