There's a school of thought on how much revising an author should do. The first draft has a certain freshness, energy, and voice. Some paring down, fleshing out, and polishing is inevitable. For suspense writers, the next round is when you think of all the little clues to plant. Foreshadowing. Better metaphors.
First draft, the crucial thing is to WRITE. Let the words flow. Forget punctuation, spelling, vocabulary. Get the action, the emotions, the theme out.
Unless you're a paint-by-numbers, er, plotter vs panster. Sorry, I am terrible at plotting, so I sink to sniping and taking pot-shots at those who are gifted in an area where I am so challenged.
Write on - revise as needed, but don't revise as much as I do - and enter @rhondak's flash fiction contest. :-)
Me, I revise more than I actually write, and all too often, it only makes things worse. E.g.,
The Tipper
That awful dog of hers looked like Hitler, with his little mustache of dark fur above perpetually bared teeth. She could have passed for a Nazi prison guard. It’s true what they say about dog owners resembling their pets. These two had the same cold, hostile stare for me every morning at ten.
My opening lines stayed mostly the same as I polished and pared to get a story down to the 1000-word minimum for a charity anthology. Yesterday I posted an old version (oops) of the story. Today I found the missing middle that mattered, and restored it. The danger of revisions: you need to save old versions, in case you discover the early drafts were better than the revisions. If you save old stuff, LABEL IT and REMEMBER the file names. (Most of you, I hope, do not suffer the level of disorganized thinking I do.)
https://steemit.com/flashfictioncontest/@carolkean/flash-contest-short-story-the-tipper
You have my Upvote. Always great advice. I can not thank you enough.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you! Sometimes we need another writer/reader to STOP US from reworking too much.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit