Are you like George Lucas?

[Sidewinder]

Have you ever read one of your old stories, asked yourself, "Is this my best work, or can I do a better job?" and revised the story?

George Lucas is the most famous-- or infamous-- person to do so, but he's not the only one. Do fan fiction writers do this? If so, how often?

I haven't kept a count of how often I revise my stories, but I can spend years trying to perfect them. Would you care to talk about your own experiences with revisions?

[Mark S]

If it's posted on the board, I don't change it. That's seems kind of cheap to me. If it's not posted, it's not really 'published' yet, than it's a work in progress and it's fair game.

[Noble Ire]

Generally, I only fix spelling and grammatical errors in released works. Thats not really a story revision though.

[JME2]

I've been tempted to do it a couple of times with The Best of Both Worlds, especially with my now more experienced and improved writing style and ideas that I realized I could have used and want to incorporate earlier into the story. But. I have to respect what has gone before and work from there.

[Crayz9000]

I've completely rewritten A Prelude to War (and retitled it too) since the last major version that I posted, but the difference is that I'm going to just leave the old version up once the new one is finished (instead of saying, "This is my work, you can't get any earlier versions."). It's more just because I like showing the creative process in work.

As for rewriting it, I did it because the earlier edition, quite frankly, stunk from a literary perspective.

[weemadando]

I've made big changes to many stories.

Often they take on a life of their own and I make changes to them later based on new developments that I feel are more beneficial than earlier, awkward developments.

[Instant Sunrise]

One of my scripts, even after positive feedback after showing it around, I scrapped everything but the first slugline and rewrote it from a red vs blue ripoff to something dramatic, edgey and moody.

And in A Series of Unfortunate Coincidence I changed Luke's sith name after negative feedback from it.

[Dakarne]

Yes... I do major revisions occaisionally, even before the story is finished

[NecronLord]

I rewrote the end of my last Dalek fic to show a Time Wars Dalek, so, yes. Yes I am.

[Pcm979]

Hey, I've done one better than any of you so far; I literally deleted my entire story and started from scratch once.

[Ford Prefect]

I did that once myself. I'll alter a story if I believe that the continuity is a little screwy, or such.

[Dakarne]

Hey, I've done one better than any of you so far; I literally deleted my entire story and started from scratch once.

I've done that, several times, on the first chapter alone.

[LadyTevar]

Shit, I'm still revising old stuff of mine until I feel it's "worth Printing"

[Mr. Coffee]

Well... For the Special Director's Limited Cut Unedited Edition of The Adventures of Don Wan Tu I was going to rewrite Rathy as chucking a beer bottle at Blarny first and replace O'Leary the Bartender with a giant talking slug and a really shitty pop band with a freakish alien singing in Swahili...

[R.O.A]

I dont presently have any fanfics posted here but for my ones at other places yes ive been changing the same story for months now

[Sidewinder]

If it's posted on the board, I don't change it. That's seems kind of cheap to me.

In my opinion, it's cheap to NOT try to make my stories as good as I can make them. If I have to change something I already posted, fine-- it's like a software company issuing patches, a hassle, but a necessity to ensure the product's integrity.

[Mark S]

In my opinion, it's cheap to NOT try to make my stories as good as I can make them. If I have to change something I already posted, fine-- it's like a software company issuing patches, a hassle, but a necessity to ensure the product's integrity.

But this isn't software to patch. It's a story and it's already out there. People are already following it the way you had it written the first time. Writing yourself into a corner and than just going back and adding something in at the beginning to help you out in the end, adding the gun hanging on the wall, just because you can't think of how to work with what you have, is just cheap and low end. "Uh, sorry guys. I don't know how to work this out so I've gone back and changed some stuff from five chapters ago. It should make sense now."

I'm not talking about polishing up grammer and spell mistakes, I'm talking about, as the OP said, pulling a George Lucas and rewriting parts that people already know to be what the story is. That's just insulting to your audiance. It was when GL did it and it is here too. Do that shit before you set it loose on the public, not after.

So it turns out not to be your best work. So what? No one had to pay for it. So it turns out you can't figure out how to work with what you have and it's entirely unfinishable. So what? You learned from it and you'll do better next time, but you can't take back what you've done once people see it. And if it's a finished work that you're changing again and again, how many times do you expect people to read the same thing just because you want to make it better... again and again. How many do-overs do you need?

People aren't reading fanfics to be your proofreaders, they're reading to be entertained. Everyone who posts a story on this board looking for constructive feedback is brutally aware of this. Yes, you definitely should make your stories as good as you can, but do it before you start posting. Why would you expect an audiance to sit through all your iterations?

[Noble Ire]

I'm not talking about polishing up grammer and spell mistakes, I'm talking about, as the OP said, pulling a George Lucas and rewriting parts that people already know to be what the story is. That's just insulting to your audiance. It was when GL did it and it is here too. Do that shit before you set it loose on the public, not after.

What has Lucas done other than polish the sound and visuals (essentially grammar and spelling checks) and add in a few random scenes that had no bearing on the plot that he wanted to add but due to time/tech constraits couldn't. Some of the continuity changes are more questionable, but I fail to see how adding the wampa in ESB is insulting. Its not like he added Lando in ANH just so he can go "Ooo foreshadowing."

[Kuja]

What has Lucas done other than polish the sound and visuals (essentially grammar and spelling checks) and add in a few random scenes that had no bearing on the plot that he wanted to add but due to time/tech constraits couldn't. Some of the continuity changes are more questionable, but I fail to see how adding the wampa in ESB is insulting. Its not like he added Lando in ANH just so he can go "Ooo foreshadowing."

I believe he's largely referring to the infamous "Greedo shot first" debacle.

[Darth Fanboy]

I think that if I can improve my story i'll do it, but unlike GL can do I will be willing to reverse the change if it proved unpopular

[Mark S]

What has Lucas done other than polish the sound and visuals (essentially grammar and spelling checks) and add in a few random scenes that had no bearing on the plot that he wanted to add but due to time/tech constraits couldn't. Some of the continuity changes are more questionable, but I fail to see how adding the wampa in ESB is insulting. Its not like he added Lando in ANH just so he can go "Ooo foreshadowing."

Well, Greedo shooting first is one. Changing the Emperor and his dialogue in ESB so that it fits better with the prequals is another. To a lesser extent, so is changing old Anakin ghost into young Anakin ghost. Why was it so hard to write the prequals around the already existing movies? All he had to do was watch them.

[Noble Ire]

Well, Greedo shooting first is one. Changing the Emperor and his dialogue in ESB so that it fits better with the prequals is another. To a lesser extent, so is changing old Anakin ghost into young Anakin ghost. Why was it so hard to write the prequals around the already existing movies? All he had to do was watch them.

Condeeded, the ESB dialogue change was completely unecissary, and the other two were as well (although the newer Greedo scene is an improvement over the SE edition.)

[Kruk]

Yes. I've change my stories from time to time. My first (and till now only) story in english is very different from Polish original

[Sidewinder]

I'm not talking about polishing up grammer and spell mistakes, I'm talking about, as the OP said, pulling a George Lucas and rewriting parts that people already know to be what the story is. That's just insulting to your audiance. It was when GL did it and it is here too. Do that shit before you set it loose on the public, not after.

In that case, will you volunteer to proofread for me, so I can avoid being put in a situation where I must edit a story AFTER it's been put on this BBS?

[Mark S]

In that case, will you volunteer to proofread for me, so I can avoid being put in a situation where I must edit a story AFTER it's been put on this BBS?

Brother, I have enough of my own trouble finding the time to write the next chapter of Manifest Destiny and get a couple revisions in (the latest chapter took something like seven months) without dedicating myself to editing someone else's work. I even posted an open call in the Writer's Guild for just this sort of help myself.

I would suggest that you join the Writer's Guild and hopefully a few people in there will be able to give you their opinions. Otherwise, just agree that we have fundimentally different philosiphies as to what the 'submit' button means when it comes to our work, and keep on doing what you're doing.