Finish the book or edit while writing?

[ThisAdamGuy]

When you're writing a book, do you try to get the entire book finished before going back and editing earlier parts? Or will you stop and go back to change earlier parts as soon as you see an error or decide to make a change?

I'm definitely in the second group, and I kinda hate it. I would finish way more books if I could just force myself to keep the plot rolling and fix what's broken after it's finished. But I usually end up making big changes to the plot at least once or twice while writing the book, so while I could keep writing, the fact that my early chapters don't match what's happening in the chapters I'm writing now bugs me to no end so I have to go back and fix them. Then I inevitably realize just how much I'm going to have to rewrite to make the new plotline work, lose my motivation, and start another project. Rinse, repeat.

 

[John_Owl]

Considering I post my chapters here as they're completed, I'm more in the second group. Granted, I don't make major plot changed, but I do edit as I'm writing. Editing, proofreading, alpha readers, etc etc.

 

[Tempokai]

Editing while writing. I have a goal for the chapter, and it must be finished at least 80% good. Additional editing can be done afterwards.

 

[AmbreaTaddy]

Depending on classic novels or webnovels. Classic novels, I edit after I'm finished (and publishing houses often ask to change some things anyways). But webnovels, I just edit chapter by chapter, not looking back

 

[Cardon]

While writing - not even during the chapter, but also while I do a later part and realize I can make things align better by making a small change.
Then after finishing the book. Any superfluous use of 'began to', 'started to', 'had' in particular gets mercilessly hunted down by Ctrl+F.

 

[Masked_writer]

A little of both

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Considering I have finished two so far (and one no longer exists anywhere except in vague memories of myself and the four people who read it), a mix of both.
Sometimes I get caught up in reading old chapters and find flaws or inconsistencies as I do so, that need resolution. Sometimes I have others point out errors I made and go back and tweak. Otherwise, I would probably wait until the end. But this is probably why I keep all my stories in one file each... so I can occasionally go back more easily.

 

[TASTYLEADPAINT]

Second group for me

 

[Tyranomaster]

The way I see it, there isn't just do or don't do, but there is a tendency towards one type or another.

I myself only ever go back to fix actual continuity errors or spelling/grammar. I've only had a couple of continuity fixes I've done, and they've been minor.

I think, more than anything, it's a mindset thing of how you're trying to present your story and what your plans are for it. As someone who wants to fully publish the book in print one day, the web novel is treated as alpha readers, their feedback has been invaluable, but incorporating it before the end would be self-defeating. It's much harder to keep track of continuities in both the past and future of the story. If you make a change in one portion in the past, it has ripple effects. That's why I only plan on doing the major editing as a full re-write. I've already planned dozens of changes and features that I think will drastically improve reader experience while keeping to the story (I've grown a lot as an author in these 500k words).

There will then be the 'beta' rewrite that I'll only distribute to a handful of people for feedback, which, if it turns out well, will then go through the minor corrections wheel, possibly paying for a copy-editor and artist at that point.

---

If you're in a different boat though, where you have no intentions of going further than a web novel, I can understand doing editing on the fly, and making changes as you go. This ultimately would be the final product anyway, so it's not like the effort would be wasted at that point (though I standby that it would make it much harder to keep track of as the story gets long.)

 

[soupsabaw]

For me, it entirely depends how I feel about the work. Like, I started posting my work wayyyy before I was finished because I was really excited to get it out there, however, I was nowhere near having it finished nor did I even have an ending thought of. Now, I'm a bit more relaxed lol. I have two works I'm working on that I do not plan on posting one chapter of until I'm finished with the whole thing. Before I post the first part, I want to go through the whole thing with the least amount of interruptions to make sure I'm happy with the flow, development, style consistency, etc.

 

[DireBadger]

I post stuff on scribblehub for a reason.

I am pretty good at catching stuff on the fly (30+ years of writing stories, D&D modules, game scripts, technical writing, and online text-based MUD's)
But when I post the chapter to scribblehub, I let Grammarly have a go at it.

I won't use a lot of its suggestions (I don't want my text to 'taste' like Grammarly), especially in dialogue, but it helps catch enough typos, missing punctuation, and the occasional capitalization error.
That's the only thing that lay between me and a release version. Sure, professional editing would be nice if I could afford to open my veins for a publishing company, but even with a single Grammarly run, it's good enough.

Then again, I very much enjoy re-reading my own books, so once I have enough to publish or stub, I will happily go back and make sure I didn't make any huge logic, continuity, or naming errors. That only takes a few hours, though, since a lot of those habits have been beaten out of me.


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