Fixing a story. Editing now or later?

Last week I asked the twittersphere for some help with one of my stories, and I wanted to share with everyone (thanks so much if you were one of the ones who answered!)

My problem was this: I’m working on a story where I need to rewrite good parts of the beginning. I think!

I’m already halfway through though, so my question was, do I fix the beginning now, or edit it later?

Ive found that as a general rule, most people, blogs, websites, and any kind of writing advice place/site/person, will tell you to not edit whilst you write. But anyway.

 

Obviously I  got two kind of answers since I posed two questions. Some people said fix it now, some said don’t even bother, do it later.

The majority of people who told me to do it now, argued for having a strong foundation to work with, and that the change could result in other changes along the way. That’s very sound advice and I get that. And this is kind of what made me ask for help as well, because I kept feeling like I would be better off if I did fix it now, yet I was unsure. I wanted to do it now but I couldn’t tell why.

 

People who told me to hold off, suggested that, as long as it doesn’t affect major parts of the plot or the ending, it really doesn’t matter. Your first draft is bad no matter what, fix it later.

 

And for now, I’ve ended up going with the latter option, fixing it in editing, and the reasons for this are:

 

1 – As I’m thinking about the story currenty, it won’t affect the ending. (I say that, that could change, but right now I can’t see that it will).

 

2 – I’m not entirely sure what the problem with the beginning is. I feel like there is something I need to do, but I can’t entirely put my finger on it yet. So it feels counterproductive to try and deal with a problem I have yet to understand.

 

3 – And this isn’t really a reason, but I much prefer to write first and edit after. I want to finish the main body of the story before I go back to the beginning, so that I can see it from start to end.

 

So like I said, for now I’ve gone with waiting. That could change, other things could come up that would make me want to edit asap. But for now I feel content with waiting, especially after asking my author friends on twitter. It’s weird though, I still feel like I ought to fix it right away, though I really don’t want to. Anyway, I’m sure it will sort itself out.

If you helped me reach this conclusion, or if you gave me advice anyway, thanks again!

 

Sign up to my mailing list here!