Sathael
The one thing I definitely do NOT do, is go back to page one and fix the story one sentence at a time. My books are not my babies, because at the end of the first draft I still have to lop off a few limbs, graft on some replacements, and go through trauma triage before I even consider giving it a nose job.
I try not to look at my work when I do my first edit. Then I don't get caught up in the words and I instead think about it scene by scene, story arc by story arc, character by character. Better to address the big things that need major rewriting than to get bogged down in what the best turn of phrase is.
Your re-writing process sounds a lot like mine. Most of pass two was fixing the major inconsistencies and trying to create a story that flowed better, but also fixing up some of the major plot inconsistencies and heavily modifying the storyline so that it worked better. Pass three, which I am on now, is a lot more fine-tuning. Though getting to that point has taken a while. And I may need a fourth pass for the end bits ... I have one scene still that needs heavy tweaking, and I just don't trust myself to fine-tune something when I'm still trying to make sure the foundation is strong enough and that it leads into a smooth story.
Kairi Nightingale
I don't edit so much as completely rewrite my stuff. ^.^; But I heard a good way to edit grammar and other mechanical errors after you're done fixing the plot is to start with the last chapter and work backwards. That way you won't get distracted by the content as much (and at that point, you might be sick of reading the story anyway so this would be a way to make it a little different or at least slightly less repetitive).
lppurplegirl11
I don't really make changes to what I wrote
I just take a quick peek at the first draft then rewrite it completely, keeping parts that I really liked.
I don't like looking at it too much because I don't want it to influence the new draft too heavily and have it end up being too similar
Seems like there's two schools of thought on editing, and you're both pretty firmly in the heavily re-write category as opposed to the fix-as-you-go school.
What does a re-write look like to you, Kairi? Do you look back on your first draft or do you set it aside entirely like purple?
Purple -- why do you try to make the second draft come out so differently from the first one? Is there a specific advantage, to you, in writing a different story around the same concept?
I ask because even when I re-write something that I really didn't like, I find myself referring back to the original pretty heavily, even if I'm adding new plot threads, cutting or heavily modifying large chunks of the dialogue, or altering the plot because the original version of it didn't work out properly. I guess I think of it as more something to be tweaked and re-arranged as opposed to completely thrown out. Curious as to your methods, because they sound very different from mine.
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