From: nicky.matthews@btinternet.com   
      
   On Saturday, September 20, 2014 2:13:28 PM UTC+1, Kevin C wrote:   
   > On Saturday, September 13, 2014 8:29:52 PM UTC-4, Michelle Bottorff wrote:   
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   > > This resembles me.   I never revise unless I know what I'm fixing and   
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   > > why and how.   
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   > > (This doesn't include copy edit type fixes of course.  )   
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   > My compulsive writer experience this week:   
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   > Picked up a story with a premise I liked, but which never clicked. The last   
   manuscript had *three* versions, interspersed, to see which was better, and   
   all was garbage. Then had an inspiration on a completely different version   
   with none of the problems    
   of pacing and better tension and conflict, wrote that, and ditched the rest.   
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   > Finished? Not hardly.   
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   > First was looking for typos and continuity problems. Corrected. Then for   
   clunky text. Corrected. Then for ways to make the story better. Corrected.   
   Then sentence structure. Corrected. Then a last run-through to catch the   
   stragglers. Corrected. It now    
   awaits the draw, where it will rest before a final going-over.   
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   > The interesting thing is that the first rewrite cut the length of the story   
   in half. The next two reduced it by maybe a thousand words. The last two cut   
   about two hundred, and the very last fifty.   
      
   I start with the macro not the micro - generally I can't see what's wrong   
   until someone tells me but when they alert to the issues I normally see much   
   more problems than originally flagged. Time helps too - otherwise you don't   
   know what is on the page    
   and what is in your head.   
   N   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)