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That second sample is definitely much stronger, but I think it’s also clear how much you changed the character from one sample to another. The personality is completely different.

For the longest time I thought a rewrite was wiring a draft, throwing it out, and writing it all over again. That that WAS an integral part of the writing process. Even though I thought it seemed rather wasteful, that’s how I operated for the longest time. When I realized that’s not what a rewrite usually means, and I became a better writer, I pretty much don’t do that. Ever. The closest I’ve gotten to a total rewrite is the latest edit on one of my books. While I never officially trashed the draft I was rewriting, I did end up cutting about 87k words and replacing most of them. So…rewrite by another name? But for the most part I write the first draft and shape it from there, like a hunk of clay.

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Your ability to revisit a manuscript and reformulate much of the structure amazes me. It is something I'm incapable of doing once a story has been told. I spend a considerable amount of thought process up front to make sure I don't have to do that. While editing my short story collection I came across my oldest story (about 9 months old) and I struggled to get through the edit, but also struggled with the idea that I should rewrite major parts of it. I had to set it aside and I will revisit. Some proofreading or sentence structure doesn't bother me as much, but if the cadence or paragraph structure doesn't work then I grow frustrated quickly. I'm almost done with No Adults Allowed and I'm really enjoying it! I can tell you put a lot of thought into "evening out" the characters. No one seems under or overdeveloped.

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I enjoy DEEP LORE, but also grew up on Tolkien and TTRPGs. Then again, I also think DEEP LORE should exist to inform the characters and settings of the main story. Does the DEEP LORE (which is being said mentally an octave down with tap reverb) include (random example) a society with a highly structured caste system backed up with strong religious dogma? Well then it better be used to heighten the internal struggle of the maverick character who is about to bust cultural mores in a huge way. DEEP LORE is also useful for "open ended franchises." The classic example here will be the comic book - some running month after month for decades on end - where the DEEP LORE should inspire stories and character growth. If course comic books tend to reboot from time to time, but usually because the publisher has decided to integrate recent tales back into the DEEP LORE again. Sometimes referencing DEEP LORE is called "fanwank."

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The more I write, the less time I spend needing to do anything drastic in rewrites. Part of that is developing a feel for story structure and length, and figuring out when a story goes wrong. I'm also not afraid to put something aside for some time when I get that tell-tale feel of "something's wrong and I don't know what it is."

But. I also am set up so that if a story starts to take a twist, it's easy for me to go back and tweak things to reflect it. I probably do a lot of tweaking and editing while the story is in rough draft, most likely more than I realize.

The other piece is that I somewhat plan what is happening in the story. Not a huge outline (unless I have multiple POVs running around at great distances from each other, then I need to do it for continuity's sake) but, at the minimum, in chunks of 30k words or so. I know what needs to be happening at the 30k mark, the 60k mark, and the 90k mark. I can come fairly close to figuring out how long a book will end up being and come within 5-10k of that estimate--again, a factor of having written something like 20 books (my friend who is working on her 50th book also has that mental sense, so I think it's something that comes with experience).

So ground-up rewrites are not my usual thing these days. Right now, I'm reworking some stuff I wrote years ago, partially-written stories that didn't go anywhere for various reasons. What I'm seeing is that much of that work--the partially written discards--now appears in the time I spend worldbuilding, including story notes and worldbuilding short stories.

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The byline for this made me chuckle because last night I was sharing my 'discarded deep lore' with some people. Though I don't think I've ever had deep lore for its own sake, or at least not to a point where it interfered and I struggled to take it out.

I'm still going through my first serialized original story, but I've already been thinking ahead to when the whole thing is done and I can edit it. Especially since it has unconventional formatting where it's written like a game guide, and my understanding of the imaginary game has evolved.

I have some short stories I edited a lot while trying to get them published, both with full rewrites and adjustments. They got to the point where it felt like I had only one remaining shot at getting them submitted, and I was using submission grinder. Naturally that's a hard shot to make and I never got around to the edits for that because with odds like that you want to get as close to perfect as possible. I've had some thoughts of putting the stories on substack.

I have one story that's stuck around since middle school with constant attempts to rework it, which led to it becoming an amorphous blob of different ideas. With any luck the latest rework will be the last, since I finally cut off a ton of older elements (bye deep lore) and changed the genre to portal fantasy.

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