Dividing Work

I wanted to ask how you handle your workload.

In general, there are two basic approaches to handling your writing workload and most of us use one or the other:

• Writing draft straight through and editing later as a separate process
• Editing more or less as you go

I tend to go with the former, though I have to admit I usually fall somewhere in the middle. Whenever I get too much draft, I find it nigh impossible to wade through it all in editing, so most of the times, I will write "through."

"Writing through" is a process by which you simply state, in a few short sentences, what is supposed to happen at this juncture of your story. You do not write it, you simply collect whatever is happening - plot points, pertinent dialogue, scene snippets, etc. - and continue writing the rest of the story or go back and start editing to that point.

In general, you should limit yourself to basic editing as you go (grammar, spelling, etc.) because you can edit yourself right out of a story that way. In general, it is only going to be that much work for you down the road; whatever you change always runs the possibility of having to be changed back once the rest of the story is written. Wait until your entire story is written to work on structural changes and editing, but grammar, spelling, and other simple mistakes are generally easily edited as you go.

How do you do it?

© C Harris Lynn, 2008