Reread? Rewrite?
Feb. 27th, 2012 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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hd_writers♥ Do you ever go back and reread your older fic?
♥ Or do you prefer to forget it once it's posted?
♥ Do you or have you ever gone back and rewritten your earlier fic?
♥ Or do you prefer to forget it once it's posted?
♥ Do you or have you ever gone back and rewritten your earlier fic?
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Date: 2012-02-28 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-02-28 05:21 am (UTC)>___>
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Date: 2012-02-28 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-02-28 07:04 am (UTC)*grins*
All joking aside, I recently pondered this question in regards to my own fics. Not gonna lie, if it was a well-received fic I tend to want to re-read it. If only to reacquaint myself with a certain 'tone' or 'voice' that resonated with readers.
Still, I've found it can be a cringe-worthy experience that ultimately leads to me questioning if I ought to delete the piece altogether while simultaneously tossing back a shot of vodka.
I have a love/hate relationship with my writing.
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Date: 2012-02-28 08:40 pm (UTC)I understand about wanting to try and capture that tone or voice again! And I've also gone back and reread my more well accepted fics and tried to figure out what I did 'right'.
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Date: 2012-02-28 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 07:29 pm (UTC)I understand that! I don't do it often and I do cringe sometimes when I do!
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Date: 2012-02-28 08:13 am (UTC)But...most of the time I re-read and want to hit my head against the desk, mainly because of typos. That or I see things I now don't do when I'm writing (epithets! Never again!). I'd like to go back and edit the typos and any bits of really bad grammar but I wouldn't want to change too much content. Re-reading can be a bit embarrassing - I honestly know how to use apostrophes, I swear, but looking at my earlier work you'd think I'd never even met one.
The main thing stopping me fiddling with old fic is the logistics behind downloading thousands of words of stuff and having to split it into chapters and then re-upload.
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Date: 2012-02-28 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 12:12 pm (UTC)I'll fix typos, but rarely anything else. Usually when I get it in my head to fix something, some site will crash and then I've got half a formatted chapter in the ether. Easier to just leave well enough alone, I suppose. :)
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Date: 2012-02-28 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 08:37 pm (UTC)Getting comments on older fic is lovely!
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Date: 2012-02-28 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 02:08 pm (UTC)It's also difficult to consider re-writing, because I have so many memories attached to those three fics. I was a little HS freshie and I remember ditching school and doing day-long writing fests at starbucks. I remember I never paid attention to the summer engineering program I was in, because I was too obsessed with finishing my fic. At this point, the memories are what matter more to me, not the fic itself.
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Date: 2012-02-28 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 03:23 pm (UTC)I'v made an attempt to rewrite once, but all that resulted in was me completely pulling the fic down and hiding it away in my flash drive because I realized how absolute shit it was and decided never to let it see the light of day again. xD
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Date: 2012-02-28 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:32 pm (UTC)Some of them are connected to times in my life I don't want to revisit. They were good for me to write at the time, to get some of my feelings out, and give me something to focus on besides the various periods of depression I had, but I don't want to go back there emotionally. I don't regret writing them, I just think I'm better to avoid re-reading them.
Some of them are really fun to go back and re-read though. If they don't fall into the above category, that is. There are things in them that I forgot about, and it's fun to relive that. I wrote Mary Sues and self-inserts and all kinds of taboo stuff, but it was SO MUCH FUN! I wrote these huge rambling soap-opera type fics and everything was so melodramatic! It wasn't about writing well so much as it was about having fun which was nice.
I don't think I've ever gone back and rewritten anything really old. I agree with others who've said they'd rather spend that time on writing new things. I could nitpick myself into insanity if I went back and tried to rewrite some of those old badly written things from the past.
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Date: 2012-03-01 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:41 pm (UTC)My reaction is usually "Did I really write this? It's too good to be written by me!" followed by "How the f--k can people like to read this when i spell and grammar like a crow on steroids?"
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Date: 2012-03-01 10:32 pm (UTC)But that's still an awesome feeling!