What should I keep in mind when reviewing and improving already published chapters?
I began writing a fantasy novel as a "last week of vacation fun project", and it hit off very well. It is my first time writing. I'm publishing as a web novel in a popular webnovel site.
And of course the first chapters have several points that I think I can improve now, reading back on them.
Things I'd like to do on the previous chapters:
- Some descriptions are lacking, or entirely missing.
- There are some scenes that I think should use greater detail.
- There are elements I will need later on, and if they are introduced earlier it would flow more naturally.
I am currently writing 4k words a day, and the new ideas for pushing the story forward are ok.
But I am (weakly) afraid that leaving these things for later will just make them pile up.
What should I do, and how should I do it? Are there good techniques / best practices for reviewing past work? Should I leave sleeping lions lie?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/38018. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
2 answers
What I do:
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immediately make essential changes that affect later chapters
If I just write on, I will have to revise even more, than if I go back now and rewrite the first chapters, before I continue.
I also have never had the problem that I couldn't get back into the flow after an early-chapter-revision-break. Of course it took me a day or three to find back in, but then I was writing away as before. And with a better feeling, because I was now on the right track.
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leave polishing, fine-tuning, fleshing out, foreshadowing etc. until I have finished the draft
Working on these now is pointless, as you may change your mind about them once you learn how your story ends.
I have often found that while I was working on a novel and thought back on the first chapter that I would have liked to add more description or something like that, but when I came to the end and began revising from the front, I was surprised to find that it was either fine as it was or that it needed something completely different, now that I had the whole story down.
So don't waste time and energy on polishing parts that you may delete!
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do not publish until the work is done
And then don't go back and start perfecting it, because you will forever feel that you could improve it. Instead let it be and write the next book.
Your readers won't notice much difference between 78% perfect and 84% perfect, but they will definitely notice another book by you they can buy.
(Learn about the 80-20 rule, if you want to make money with writing.)
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38021. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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You mean you have your first chapters already online, and now you want to go back and edit them?
Your main problem would be that most readers wouldn't go back and re-read the edited material. So if you intend to rely on an edit for stuff you write in the future to make sense, you're in a bit of a problem. You can inform your readers that you've made this change. However, while some readers would be understanding, others would find this rather annoying. If you do this multiple times, some readers might become discouraged, finding that it takes too much effort to follow your novel, and consequently drop it. Which would be a pity.
I would treat your already-published material as a first draft. Keep writing. Keep notes to yourself regarding what works and what doesn't work. If you fear you won't be able to do the edits later (forget what you wanted to change / amass too much to change / etc.) you can do those changes in an offline file. Then, once you have a final (or at least semi-final) version of the complete story, you can upload that. Or, by that point, you might have enough of a following to get the thing printed - you never know.
The readers can forgive one big change. They are unlikely to follow multiple smaller changes.
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