What's your view on rewriting a story's earlier chapters?

AmericanWeeb

Active member
Joined
Dec 17, 2019
Messages
13
Points
43
To be honest, it all comes down to planning, not improvising at one point. Editing can lead to fruitful experiences like avoiding critical mistakes, plot-holes to make it logical, or maybe if you want to change the outcome of the story, you'd remove some of the dialogues and monologues. But rewriting a story is no good, (most people would hate it, but that's inevitable. It might be better to just create a different story, but with a progressed writing-style) And you could also do an advertisement to garner views while finding a lot of feedback (which will need a lot of courage to see how shameless you'll get). So, I do think it's better to keep on going with the writing, back-editing, and then changing the writing-style in the chapter to see how much you have improved.

Not everyone is perfect, however, because no one is perfect, that everyone should strive to become one, but abusing time and hard-work at a certain every-day can affect your health and progress and might lead to regression. It's better to take it from time to time, no need to get rushed, no need to feel worried because it's not easy to master everything.

WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE!
I am harvesting clams here every day as it becomes colder, you know.
 

Minasharpwrites

Active member
Joined
Sep 30, 2019
Messages
13
Points
43
You could always rewrite in like docs or word and upload everything at once when you're done. That way you can work on it little by little when you have time without pressure. Once you've "fixed" what you wanted to fix, then it can all be uploaded at once.
 

Aleth08

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 24, 2019
Messages
54
Points
58
Was dealing with the same issue here. Whether to rewrite or just continue with the story; this is something that almost all authors wonder about I think. In my case, I asked my readers about it. And one of readers mentioned something that made the light bulb light up in my head. He said, and I quote "You think your earlier chapters are bad now, and can improve them if you rewrite. But what will happen a year later, or 2 years later. You'll improve and then once again, your rewritten chapters will seem bad to you. And this process will keep repeating without any end. So, its better to continue with the story if you like it and only do a full edit/rewrite once you're done with it and are ready for publishing."
I followed his advice, and continued with the story.
 

yansusustories

Matchmaker of Handsome Men
Joined
Mar 13, 2019
Messages
622
Points
133
I would decide whether to do it or not based on both the planned length of your story (and the current place you're at) and your own experience.

Chances are if you don't have much experience writing (or writing web novels specifically) and botched something up once, it might occur again so you'd have to rewrite several times. In that case, it might be easier to first finish the story and then do one big rewrite where you can make use of all the skills you've gained so far. This also has the advantage that you're not creating the conundrum between new version and old version where some readers started with the old one and then have to switch over to what is the new one (or wait until it catches up) where things might go (slightly) different if you change the plot. If we're just talking about a revision of writing style, this wouldn't be an issue though and you could basically just go for it and slowly work through the old chapters to make them flow better.

As for the length of the story: If you have, let's say, 200k words planned and are pondering whether to revise at 150k, I'd say again to finish first and then rewrite because those 50k will likely not take that much time (my perspective might be screwed there though, that's about half a month's time for me so really not long). If you have planned for a million words or so and are 150k in, then the story overall will still be running for a much longer time so having a beginning that reads better might be very beneficial for gaining new readers so I'd say to go for the revision immediately.

Personally, I am currently in a somewhat similar situation: My main series was planned to last for about 1 million words but we've long surpassed that and there are, like, four more volumes to go right now so I'd say it's safe to assume we might end up with 2 million or so instead. It was my first web novel (but I did previously finish, like, 10 or so traditionally written novels so I wasn't completely new to writing), as well as my first English project, so the beginning wasn't great to read either.
Now, I felt I couldn't just stop writing where I originally was and continue on the revision since I didn't want readers to wait for so long (let's be honest, at least half of them would drop the novel if I did that). So, basically, I decided to make it two versions that are running simultaneously: I am continuing to write the original version at my usual pace that I'm uploading on three sites but also editing/revising/rewriting the old volumes and uploading them as a new version on another two sites at the same pace. When I finish up until the end of a volume or a certain milestone plot-wise, I exchange the old version for the new one on two of those sites.
This way, readers can decide which version they want to read and can even jump from the new version to the old version at some designated points if they'd like to because they don't want to wait until we catch up with the old version.
So far, this approach has worked quite well for me save for the fact that I needed to take some breaks in the middle of the revision recently because of real-life issues. It works for me but I'm not so sure if it would work for others. The only question is whether you're able to keep both versions separated in your head. As for uploading, you could also put both on the same site as long as one is clearly labeled as the revised version and then link the two of them in an author's note or something or explain in the blurb.
 

AbigailWP

Producer-Rapper-Writer-Cultivator-Fellow Human
Joined
Aug 3, 2020
Messages
60
Points
33
All i know is that my reader(((single reader))) will most likely be very confused one day... It is inevitable
 

GDLiZy

Tale Admirer
Joined
Dec 23, 2018
Messages
598
Points
133
Rewrite is good. No reason not to do it if you want the collective quality of your work to go up.
 

BenJepheneT

Light Up Gold - Parquet Courts
Joined
Jul 14, 2019
Messages
5,344
Points
233
Rewrite is bad if it makes your never finish
I only recommend rewriting at least after you're finished with the arc or you're done with the book, because retrospect can fuck with a lot of things on your story, including your future plans.
 
Joined
Apr 3, 2020
Messages
201
Points
103
What about me? Always did revision in all chapter that i already published. :blob_no:
 
Top