From: b.scott@csuohio.edu   
      
   On Sun, 21 Sep 2014 04:21:59 -0700 (PDT), William Vetter   
    wrote in   
      
   in rec.arts.sf.composition:   
      
   > 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.   
      
   False: you missed ‘ways to make the story better’.   
      
   >> 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.   
      
   I expect that the first rewrite was the completely different   
   version that allowed Kevin to ditch the first three   
   versions; that could certainly reduce the length by half.   
   Correcting typos and continuity problems and clunky text   
   could account for a thousand words, mostly from the repair   
   of clunky text.   
      
   Brian   
   --   
   It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their   
   holes to root for sandtatties.  The waves whispered   
   rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,   
   haggisss.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)