How much rewriting or revision do you do?

Originally asked

The Paris Review, to novelists and poets, The Art of Fiction

A recurring Art of Fiction craft question, sometimes asked about daily rewriting and sometimes about the number of drafts.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Ephraim Asili said elsewhere, not written here
I finished it only to get on set and start re-writing everything.

MUBI Notebook source ↗

Others on this question

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David Hare Playwright and screenwriter
When I’m ready I’ll transfer what I have to the computer and rewrite.
Recorded My writing day, The Guardian, 4 November 2017 source ↗
Steve Jobs Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
We tried make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there.
Recorded Steven Levy, Newsweek interview, 16 October 2006 source ↗
I try to force myself to go all the way through to the end. I feel like big changes at the roots are much better than lots of small changes at the branches. I definitely feel like every writer has their strengths and weaknesses, and I feel my strength is that I’m really flexible. I’m open to—not to doing anything, but to considering anything. So yeah, in this book, the protagonist, Arlo, came along fairly late. The structure totally changed. To me, it’s all about cutting and structure. I think pretty analytically. So if I can just get past the first draft, and start to think like a teacher of my own work, that’s helpful for me.
Recorded Maddie Crum, The Creative Independent interview, 7 January 2022 source ↗
Kristen Radtke American writer and illustrator
It’s arduous and time consuming. A sentence can be revised ad nauseam forever. If you know what needs to happen in a scene, you may be revising that for a while to get the language right, but you’re creating the whole time. With drawing it’s different. If I storyboard something and I know, for example, that in this picture I’m going to draw myself with my feet up on my desk, talking on the phone, as I am now, I can see that exactly in my mind. Then I just have to spend the hours to put it on the paper… but that takes much longer than revising the sentences.
Recorded T. Cole Rachel, The Creative Independent interview source ↗

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