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The question

How much rewriting or revision do you typically 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.

Bartees Strange

musician

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Rarely do I feel like I have everything I need to finish. If I did something alone, I’m skeptical if no one else has touched it. I’m already like, “Am I good enough to do what I just did? I like it, but maybe I’m wrong.” I’ll take it to the people in my creative world and ask them what they think of it. At that point, one of two things will happen. I’ll be like, “Fuck y’all, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” and that’s when I know it’s done.

Sammy Maine, The Creative Independent interview, 1 February 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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Winston Churchill Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955; Member of Parliament 1900–1964
First of all, you can correct mistakes much more easily. One sweep of the palette-knife 'lifts' the blood and tears of a morning from the canvas and enables a fresh start to be made; indeed the canvas is all the better for past impressions.
Recorded Essay first published in the Strand Magazine in 1921–22 and collected in Amid These Storms, 1932, Winston S. Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, Project Gutenberg Canada, 1932 source ↗
Souvankham Thammavongsa writer, poet
I just write whatever comes to mind, and I tell myself that nobody is going to see this. Just get it all down. That first draft that I did in six weeks, I wouldn’t even call that a first draft. I would call it the ugly draft, the draft that you arrive at before you call it a first draft. And everything is wrong with it. There’s no clear idea of voice or character. I’m just in there trying to find the feeling, like what do I want this work to feel like when I get it done? And to see the material that I’m interested in.
Recorded Jancie Creaney, The Creative Independent interview, 8 May 2026 source ↗
Jia Tolentino Writer
I worked as an editor until I joined the New Yorker , and so I’m an extremely tough self-editor. I also love being edited. I love a hard edit. It’s a privilege to be edited hard.
Recorded Brandon Stosuy, The Creative Independent interview, 27 April 2022 source ↗
Gabriel Smith Author
I print every draft out even if it’s like seven things I want to change and then I type it all back into the computer sentence by sentence so that every single one is good and I’ll mumble them to myself as I’m doing that to make sure they sound okay.
Recorded Shy Watson, The Creative Independent interview, 31 October 2024 source ↗

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