: How many rewrites should a writer expect for a novel? "By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred

Vote Up Vote Down

If you are in writing to make money, it doesn't pay to rewrite. If you rewrite half as much you can output twice as many books per unit of time.

Now, some people will play the "quality" card. But quality of writing comes from talent, not from rewriting. Iron won't become steel no matter how much you pound at it.

The only time it makes rational sense to rewrite is if your work derailed from your original idea halfway through and you want to rewrite the first act to match the second and third acts. In this case, you can minimize waste by keeping the discarded half so you can write an appropriate ending later and release another book.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

I don't think there can be an answer for this. I don't think you can even have an answer for a given writer. Mercedes Lackey rewrote her first trilogy seventeen times, but now she churns out books every year or so. (whether they are any good is a different question.) Barbara Cartland wrote over 700 books in her lifetime, Isaac Asimov over 500 in his, and George R.R. Martin has been struggling with Winds of Winter since the Truman administration.

A first book or series is going to go through many cycles. Once you get better at writing and editing, and particularly if you're writing a series with familiar characters, you will likely go much faster and need fewer rounds. You can track your own work, but I think it should be only for your own benchmarking purposes. The book is done when it's done, and not before.

(0)