Temporary Hiatus · 3:28pm Dec 23rd, 2015
A couple of days ago I decided to go back and reread the first few chapters I had posted for this story. What I read was... pretty bad, actually. It's true that it was my first story and I was just getting use to the layout of FimFiction, but at this point it's inexcusable. There are numerous grammar mistakes, format errors and other bits I'm sure I missed.
Despite the fact that this is little more then Fan Fiction, I want to do this right. Those first chapters are what readers see when opening my story and it's not a reflection on my abilities today. I want this story to be relatively polished from start to finish. I've seen stories where authors make a comment saying something along these lines:
"I wasn't sure where I was going with this story at first, so the first few chapters aren't very good. I promise it gets better at around chapter X though!"
I see this as being incredibly unprofessional. If you know there's a problem then fix it. That's exactly what I plan on doing. I'm going to go back and work on chapters 1-22. I only plan on fixing up what I already have written and I have no intention of adding any new information. Like many other authors I wasn't sure where to take this story at first. At this point and time I now have most of the story and plot laid out in my mind.
Please bear with me for the time being while I sort out my own mess. I want to do this before I release any more chapters. If you have any questions for me regarding this or anything else let me know in the comments below.
Wish you all a Merry Christmas,
Mountainmanmad
On the one hand, I can really only agree with this. On the other hand, though, if you were publishing in a print medium that doesn't allow you to endlessly revise your own older work, you would simply have to live with being embarrassed by your older stuff as well, the way every author is. It's self-indulgent, in a way, to care more about the impression your work gives to people than to do your best to finish it for the people who have gotten invested in the story as it already stands.
I think it's also, frankly, just a bad habit to get into. By the time you're done with this, you'll likely have already improved again and find new stuff that you wish you had done differently, which you could then improve again and so on ad infinitum. At some point, you have to let your work stand on its own merits and simply try to do better next time, or you'll never get done with anything.
We get the same feeling from our own use of mortal mediums to transcribe our humans events, from their rise or fall from grace to power or what have thou not.
All that matters in the end is what thou approve of as being fit for thy own standards that could be enjoyed by others.
3638324
I agree with this wholeheartedly. However, this is my earliest work. I don't plan on doing this again and to reiterate it'll only be a 'touch-up'.
3638572
Well, just so long as you don't overdo it, I guess. Some people try to do entire rewrites of their story to get them up to "current standards" and that kind of thing typically ends up simply killing them - the author gets sick of it because, let's be frank, it's tedious and annoying work and the readers abandon the story because it basically stops progressing completely and there's no reason to follow it anymore.