DWinchester
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The Limits to Retroactive Improvement
🕑 Added 2023-05-20 10:50:22 +0000 UTCThough Tenebroum gets most of the love and Golemancer and Death After Death get most of the hate when it comes to the things I write, the other day someone was kind enough to leave a 1.5 star on Ch. 7 of Tenebroum. This is the chapter where the Lich rises up and take the village. That struck me as odd of course, because most everyone really likes that chapter, but taking this spiteful form of feedback in hand I went back to see what could be improved on.
Of course, there were tons of corrections and improvements to be made. There usually are in my early chapters. But what struck me most was how much I loved the first half of the chapter (where the men just never come back,) and how dull the second half of the chapter seemed as I just glossed over the invasion in a few paragraphs.
You have to remember that at the time I wrote that chapter, Tenebroum was going to be a 20-chapter short, so I would have handled in quite a bit differently today. That led me to wonder of course - should I go back and edit that early section of the swamps life to flesh it out more when it was still spirit more than Lich? Should I have it watch a few of the townspeople and give them names to make the scene more impactful? I dropped the swap witch mini arc that I'd intended to use to expand on the spiritual nature of the world, but I could easily tie back in, if I wanted to add another 3-10 chapters to that portion of the story.
The question is - at what point does such work become self-defeating? I don't know, honestly. I plan on editing everything I write on RR/SH before I publish it in a final form one day, but I can't help but think of those retroactive edits that luminaries like Lucas and Spielberg did to their own work years later and wonder if the impulse to improve be more harmful than helpful in moments like these.
So what are your thoughts? Where are the weak points of this (and other) stories? Should I leave everything largely as it was in the first draft, or should I elaborate on the thin spots?
Comments
Roman II
Your novels are amazing, a breath of fresh air in this genre. No matter what you do there always be critics. You can't please everyone and trying to do it is an exercise in futility. Unless you want to publish your stories then continue with the story. People who read your stories want more new chapters, and will probably not even read the re-written ones.
EsZeus
Yep, I think that's the only way forward :)
Rain
I think that every story should be reread at a certain point to make sure everything is consistent with the current plan, but that doesn't mean that you need to do it now, just eventually. Whenever you feel like it
D. Winchester
No, that's well said. I love this response. Thank you for the positive feedback/encouragement! I wasn't trying to imply I'm too broken up over it. I agree with your thinking on this. I'm far more vexed by the Golemancer's level of criticism, in this case I was mostly just asking the question, "how much can you/should you 'fix' something before you ruin it?" Is it worth it. That sort of thing. And I think you are exactly right. I should focus on moving forward. ...but I might do a few upgrades before I take the story to KU one day. We will see.
EsZeus
I think you should focus now on improving the later chapters and fight forward instead of going back to the early chapters. "Learn from your past mistakes, but don't live within your past" or something like that. My most important sentence I always preach to myself and others. Learn from your early chapters, but they are not even bad. So move forward, and whenever you publish it openly like on KU later, you can easily edit everything. But don't waste your time with little maggots trying to downvote novels so much, just because they have a little Ego and are "Assholes". That's just internet. No one really deserves 1,5 stars reviews or ratings, only when it's REALLY garbage. We all know that. And RR is even FREE for them. But instead of moving forward and just dropping the story, they want to leave a pissed off mark behind. Like dogs, who wants to leave their "piss-scent" everywhere... I know some things about this behavior, because I am highly criticizing all the time. AND I also wrote a little novel on RR before I dropped it. So, trust us here, dude. Do your thing. Continue forward. You are doing an awesome job in my opinion. Period. I am reading a lot on RR, Kindle and Webnovel. Do you know what TRASH you encounter on Webnovel all the time? Your novel is a Gem. Don't let yourself be discouraged from assholes. They will popup every now and then anyway. You can't make it right. Even Rhaegar (Azarinth Healer) said the same. Sometimes you have like little maggot waves that are flowing through the website, or your novel. Live with it^^ Be strong :) Heads up and cheers! :3
D. Winchester
Yeah. None of the improvements would come at the cost of forward progress on the story. I just don't want to ever change it so much that it's unrecognizable. Hence, the balancing act. We will see. I will finish my currrent goal list before I give myself new ones.
Arsenii
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. If you see the points that could be improved upon why not do so? Just don’t lose yourself in a never ending cycle of corrections and rewrites.
