One of the issues I have yet to overcome when writing is correcting myself as I write. Christ, I even did it in that first sentence. It doesn’t matter if it’s fiction, a blog post, this OP, or an email for work. I find myself constantly rereading as I type and going back to correct. Needless to say, this makes my writing much harder and take a lot longer.
Any ideas on how to stop this behavior?
Do you have the whole plot and every scene worked out?
Keep your hands or fingers moving. Don’t pause to think or look around. Don’t reread as you go! Take a break before reading to see the work with somewhat fresher eyes.
No. I have individual scenes worked out, but not the entire story.
Well, I have to, right?! I mean how else can I write a story unless … … Maybe … just maybe … that’s a clue as to why I haven’t written anything. Hmm, I’ll have to table that writing for a bit and have a good think on it…
Tip 1: Write or die. (You can google it. I would post a link but I’m lazy.)
Basically you say how many words you want to get out and then if you stop typing to think, you get annoying stuff. You can set the annoyance level.
The basic premise is: Don’t think. Type!
I have found it very helpful for short bursts. You do have to be sure to save your stuff. You can edit it later.
Tip 2: block out your screen so you can’t see what you’re typing.
Tip 3: Write long hand or use an old-fashioned typewriter. Typewriters are pretty easy to find. Ribbons for them not so much. But going back and making changes as you write is so much more cumbersome.
I really like typing first drafts on a typewriter. I like the noise. I like being able to slam that carriage back at the end of a line. Editing and then retyping on the computer for the second draft on (I am basically a three-draft writer, except for posts on message boards).
Professional writer here, freelance, with lots of very tight deadlines. Just as an FYI, depending on what I’m working on, my mood, etc., I sometimes find myself doing quite a lot of correcting as I write. I don’t know, of course, whether my corrections are as extensive as yours; I will say that while I used to view making lots of corrections on the fly as intrusive, harmful, and generally bad, these days I’m much more mellow about it.
I get that you find the constant focus on corrections to be a problem, and I won’t try to talk you out of it. Just know that it isn’t necessarily “bad form” or “something writers don’t ever do.”
In addition to being more accepting of it if you can do it, a couple of suggestions:
–Set a timer. Five minutes, say. (Start small.) Force yourself to write with no corrections during that time, not even fixing typos. Set it again. Go back and make changes as needed, but be ready to plow forward once more when it goes off.
–Write on a card “I’ll fix it later” and post the card next to your workspace.
–Cover your backspace key.
Good luck!
I’ve written four science fiction novels and am working on a fifth. I always correct as I write. Usually, I will write a section until I run out of steam then go back and correct it and edit it.
It takes me a lot longer to finish a manuscript this way than some other writers, but on the plus side it takes me so much less time to edit it that it all evens out.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing unless it interferes with your creativity.
I’ve written a fair deal, and I, too, do some revising even as I’m forging ahead with new material.
But I can see how someone might find himself in a bad habit of over-doing this. The only real answer is discipline. If you find yourself drifting back up through the text, looking for things to fix, don’t do that. You just have to steel yourself, harden your heart, get tough, and exercise self-control.
In some people, it might be an excuse not to write at all. Writing is hard work! Oh, gosh, my favorite TV show is on, and I haven’t answered Aunt Leticia’s invitation to lunch, and I sure could use a ham salad sandwich right now and…
As for having the story/novel all planned and plotted ahead, I’ve done it that way, and it’s great. But usually, I just wander out into the vast unexplored desert, and “find out” what the story is about as it comes to me. Jolly fun, although a bit scary sometimes.
Re-writing is MUCH easier than writing. Leave it for later. (You might end up having to change what you’ve already changed! Why duplicate the effort?)
Here’s my technique when I find myself tempted to go back and correct too much: I simply type stream of consciousness/brainstorming-style about what it is I want to write. I’m not even writing what I want - I’m writing about writing. Sometimes I think of it as if I’m telling a friend about what I want to accomplish.
Then, having blurted everything out with no intention whatsoever of keeping it, I put it up on the second monitor and start with a new page. This is the page I will keep, written with reference to what was done before. Sometimes, I can even copy/paste what I wrote initially, but that’s not really the purpose. The purpose is to keep myself going, and to make sure I’ve clearly sorted out what I want to achieve in the final draft.
I’ve found this technique especially helpful when I have trouble staying in a particular writing style. If I can get the basics down without worrying about style, then I can keep style top of mind when I do the final writing.
Don’t assume you should stop correcting. If the corrections are improving the work, then continue them.
Well, sure, if it works, it works. But Daddypants was perceiving it as a problem, and so, subjectively, it is one.
Unfortunately, like many undesired behaviors, the only way to stop is to…grit your teeth and stop.
“How do I stop myself from chewing my fingernails?”
It might help if you know everything that there will be in the story, so that there’s sort of a “ticking off a checkbox” mentality as you write and you can set explicit schedules.
Come up with an actual schedule. Write down on a calendar where you start and finish each scene. Schedule the editing time for each scene. Make sure you come up with a reasonable amount of time and pre-allocate it.
It also helps to have someone else dependent on your schedule. Find an editor or someone who is going to ask for you to deliver each section as agreed upon in advance (e.g., one chapter each week or whatever).
Different things work for different people. I’ve written two things where everything was planned in advance and I have another project where I’m basically winging it every time I start writing. It just depends on what works for you and what doesn’t.
In general, I think that it is good to have at least the start and end figured out before you start writing. Outlining each scene can help you to make sure that you don’t forget about a character for too long, to make sure that the chronology makes sense, that you’re changing up the tempo of the story without enough regularity, etc. But it’s all optional. Plenty of successful authors don’t do any of that.
Generally, the way I do it is that I create an Excel sheet and list the main characters across the top, starting two spaces from the left. In the leftmost column, I space out the acts down the side, like “Introduce characters”, “Bad things happen - immediate aftermath”, “A temporary break”, etc. with some number of rows available for each act. In the second column I add actual scenes, “Bob as a child”, etc., and draw an X for each involved character under their name, for that row. While doing this, you’ll find that sometimes you need to move a scene earlier or later than you had expected, that you’ve got an explained hole somewhere or a character who disappears for a great time, and so you start moving things around or creating scenes to fix issues.
Once you start writing, a few scenes might end up switching order because they happened to flow together naturally, despite what it had seemed like during the planning stage, but on the whole I’ve found it to be a reasonably good process.
One of the things that I do in the drafting stage is to type out the corrections as I recognize them. By that I mean, I don’t go back and delete anything, but rather, I, in almost stream of consciousness fashion, make a note inline that I’m not happy with the preceding.
I’m not sure if that makes sense, so here’s an example.
In 2003 CHECK THAT YEAR, Smith first learned WELL HE WAS ALREADY AWARE OF IT IN SOME SENSE of the latest developments THIS DOESN’T MEAN WHAT I WANT IT TO in nanotechnology, but it didn’t DON’T USE CONTRACTIONS really become his passion until a few years later.
This way, I get out what I need to get out and can correct things at my leisure.
I often revise a bit as I write – I think everyone’s style is different. As long as it’s not overwhelming your progress, I don’t see a problem with it.
If you’re using Microsoft Word, turn off the spelling and grammar check. Nothing draws my eyes away like a squiggly red or green line of accusation.
Turn off that red line that indicates a mistake.
Use voice recognition.
If you’re using a word processing program, turn off auto correct and auto-detect.
You don’t want words popping up on you. You don’t want red or green squiggly lines staring back at you while you wonder “what’s wrong? Is it gray or grey? Should I have added a comma there? Oh crap, it’s not teh, it’s the.”
No. Just write. You can correct later.
ETA: I actually had this window up from yesterday afternoon but forgot to press submit. Apparently lots of people had this suggestion already.
Wonderful idea. I mean everyone’s ideas were great, but I think turning off the lines screaming, “THIS IS WRONG. FIX IT!” is a great first step.
If you really want to avoid the distractions of formatting and autocorrect and font sizes and styles, just don’t use Word. For pure “text” I often use Notepad++ (a better version of Notepad), which lets you essentially type and type (beware - Notepad++ also has some autocorrection options that you might want to turn off). If you want, you can turn off line wrapping to simulate forcing you to add typewriter-mode carriage returns.
Save the file as a .txt file, which Word can read for editing later. Just be sure to save your Word version as a Word document, otherwise you’ll lose any formatting.