Hello
I just found all the early versions to my stories and thought it was fascinating to see how much they changed. Here's the first paragraph of some recent ones, showing the first draft and the version I submitted. By showing you my mucky underbelly, will you show me yours? Thank you.
The Library is Closing Now
This was a time before cell phones and before the libraries closed.
Even then, he hadn’t been in the library for a long time. Years later, he’d try to remember why he’d gone that night and couldn’t remember. It must have been a council matter, or maybe one of his kids had left something there. But it had been nothing to do with books.
Final The article about the library shutting its doors appeared in that day’s newspaper. When Tom had read it – it was a short piece – he folded the paper and leaned back in his chair. After a minute he rose, shuffled to the sideboard and in an orderly way pulled out its drawers and placed them next to each other on the floor of his kitchen-diner.
This is how it Starts
This is how it starts.
With me – worse for wear I admit – and a desk sergeant.
He’s looking at me through the bars of an overnight cell, sometime in the early hours.
‘What’s a slip of a thing like you doing here,’ the desk sergeant says.
Landlord had locked me out and I’d drink and I’d no money for food.
Final It starts like this.
Worse for wear again, but worser. Morning – or light enough to make out shapes at any rate.
But silent, until a slap of metal on metal. An eye appears at a tiny, blinding window.
‘How’d a slip of a thing like you end up here?’ says the eye.
‘Don't know,’ I says. On my life that’s true. My hand aches, the knuckles tender, but the rest’s a blur.
Don’t matter.
This ain’t how it starts.
I always switch filenames if I make a significant change in direction, and keep the old version, though I almost never go back to it.
Here's one of mine, where I sidestep the wrestling of the first version entirely. It ended up being a Shard called Morning Light. It's no longer on Lush (trying to sell it) (unsuccessfully), but it got an RR at the time.
First version:
She was crying.
He lay beside her, watching her cry, wondering what to say, what to do. He mentally rehearsed several things to say in response—What’s wrong? Why are you sad? Do you want to talk about it?—but none of them seemed appropriate.
He listened.
Eventually he closed his eyes, still listening.
Final version:
She was sad.
It doesn’t matter why. Lots of things make people sad. Life is sad, sometimes.
She awoke at five a.m., hours before she usually did. She could not go back to sleep, and did not try very hard. She called into the office and left a message telling them she was taking the day off.
I e-mail my writing to myself, sometimes. Here's an early version of the beginning of Gutenberg.
"I usually loved my job. Rare book acquisitions. And I was darned good at it, too. When the New York Public Library thought it found a partial copy of William Blake's The Book of Urizen, I was the one they called for verification of authenticity. I was also the one who saved them over a million dollars on what would have been a clever fake." (September 12, 2017)
Which became....
"I’m good at my job. That’s what got me into trouble.
The New York State Library found a partial copy of William Blake's First Book of Urizen, and they called a team of experts to authenticate it. I was one of those experts and I was the only one to identify it as a clever fake. It turns out, I was right. That’s what made me famous in the world of rare book antiquities." (September 16, 2017)
I decided that the first version didn't really have a hook....
Like H., I overwrite rather than save various drafts, so I've nothing to share. I do have great admiration for authors who actually take the time to lay out an outline and save drafts; my default to Flash Erotica is more due to lack of time than to any great gift or preference for writing Flash Erotica.
Want to spend some time wallowing in a Recommended Read? Pick one! Or two! Or seven!
I also tend to just save periodically and have only one final version, but this one I started over 2 or 3 times and did have one original version saved. Looking back for the purpose of posting something here, I was surprised how much I changed it. Hadn't ever really thought about it, I guess. From 'Roped Into It'.
Originally: We'd butted heads from the moment we'd been introduced, our personalities too different to do otherwise. I felt she was going through life with a huge stick up her ass, and I'm quite sure that she was convinced that I was an ass, or worse.
The only thing we had in common was a strong and mutual dislike for each other.
~~~~~~~
Final Edit: She had a stick up her ass the size of a Giant Sequoia; that had been my first impression, at least, and now that I’d known her for several months there was nothing she’d said or done that had changed my opinion.
It had been a quick and mutual dislike from the start, one of those personality clashes that happen sometimes. To use a Gumpian analogy, we were definitely not like peas and carrots....
~~~~~~~
I'm not sure how much that improved it, but I liked it better.
This is a great thread. I’m going to look today and see if I can pull something to contribute. Editing is heart-wrenching for me but rewarding in the end.
You're breaking my heart here, fuzzy.
Now I understand how you have established yourself as such an incredibly compelling author. I do fear I will never have your fortitude.
Drat!
Anyway, for all our sakes please continue being so incredibly hard working.
I rarely save versions unless I'm doing a complete re-write, typically I just edit and re-save. I think an important point is how writers go back and improve their stories before submitting. Some stories write themselves, some are a bit of a fight. I find it interesting to go back and read my earlier submissions and see how I've improved. Got a long ways to go but writing should be an evolutionary process. Still have to get my tentacle story finished.
