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.
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.
Jancie Creaney, The Creative Independent interview, 8 May 2026 source ↗