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   rec.arts.sf.composition      The writing and publishing of speculativ      144,800 messages   

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   Message 143,619 of 144,800   
   William Vetter to Kevin C   
   Re: How do you revise?   
   21 Sep 14 04:21:59   
   
   From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   On Saturday, September 20, 2014 9:13:28 AM UTC-4, Kevin C wrote:   
   > On Saturday, September 13, 2014 8:29:52 PM UTC-4, Michelle Bottorff wrote:   
   >    
   > > This resembles me.   I never revise unless I know what I'm fixing and   
   >    
   > >    
   >    
   > > why and how.   
   >    
   > >    
   >    
   > >    
   >    
   > >    
   >    
   > > (This doesn't include copy edit type fixes of course.  )   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > My compulsive writer experience this week:   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > 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.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > Finished? Not hardly.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > 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.   
      
   All of what you describe here are English Composition issues.  None of them   
   are Not For Us story issues that are matters of opinion whether they are bad   
   writing.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > The interesting thing is that the first rewrite cut the length of the story   
   in half.    
      
   I don't understand how correcting typos and grammar can cut word count in half.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)   

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