Our hosts for this month are J Lenni Dorner, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, Lee Lowery, and Rachna Chhabria.
Here's our question for June: For how long do you shelve your first draft before reading it and re-drafting it? Is this dependent on your writing experience and the number of stories/books under your belt?
While writing experience has helped me finish stories in fewer drafts, there are other factors that matter more when I take time away from stories between drafts. The main factors are any other projects I'm currently juggling, the length of the story, and any deadlines I'm trying to meet. For novels, I normally take four to six weeks off between drafting and revising, while short stories might be a week (maybe less if I need to meet a contest deadline). However, I'm slowly working on a collection of short stories in the Season Avatars universe, and I won't revise any of them until all the stories are done. (I've only completed one story so far out of four or five.)
How long do you let your stories breathe? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
I must be a terrible writer as I let almost no time pass between first draft and revisions. In my defense, by the time I finish, I have completely forgotten the first two-thirds of the story.
ReplyDelete"The main factors are any other projects I'm currently juggling, the length of the story, and any deadlines I'm trying to meet."
ReplyDeleteI'm basically the same. It's hard for me to answer a question about how long I let a story rest. There's too much going on, both with writing and with life. I start revising when my schedule allows it.