: Re: 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

@Carla500

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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.

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