[B5JMS] Attn JMS: Another Question on Writing

[b5jms-admin at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: Smeg For Brains <astronerdboy at qwest.net>
Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 20:58:46 -0600
Lines: 35

Jms at B5 wrote:
> 
<snipped>
> 
> Fiction: here I tend to write and rewrite ceaselessly.  I'm about 200 pages
> into a novel I've been writing for the last year or so, and I've rewritten the
> first 100 pages at least 20 times, because it's a different process...it's
> about creating a mood on the page, handling description differently from a
> script (which is fairly straightforward) so that you create word pictures.  I
> also trim and snip and cut and tidy until there isn't an inch of fat on the
> thing, it's lean and mean and ready to go.  Fortunately, fiction allows that
> kind of detail work, which TV does not.
> 
>  jms
> 
> (jmsatb5 at aol.com)
> (all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
> permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
> and don't send me story ideas)


This may sound stupid but I'm curious all the same...

During the early drafts of your fiction writing, have you ever
discovered that what you wrote in one section of your work contradicted
something you wrote in another section of that same work?  How about
"duplicate effort" where you essentially wrote the same thing twice only
in different parts of your work?  I ask because I find I do this and
even though I catch it while proofing, I find it discouraging.

Thanks!

-Earl Commander
http://www.astronerdboy.com/comic-strips


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 02 Sep 2001 23:14:18 GMT
Lines: 21

>During the early drafts of your fiction writing, have you ever
>discovered that what you wrote in one section of your work contradicted
>something you wrote in another section of that same work?  How about
>"duplicate effort" where you essentially wrote the same thing twice only
>in different parts of your work? 

It happens on occasion, but almost always in situations where I'm taking a long
time to write something, say a year or more, and I forget what I have and
haven't put in.  The longer the time between starting and finishing, the more
apt this is to happen.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)