1) Not so far. I think there’s one chapter I’m gonna completely scrap this draft and try something totally different, though.

2) Yes, but it’s mostly out of laziness. I spent a number of months in between each draft doing nothing, but I dunno if it’s helped me or not.

3) It helps a lot having the framework of the previous drafts there to work off of, especially if you’ve got a mostly functional scene but you want to hit a specific note with it really hard. On the other hand, if the beats of a given scene aren’t really working, using the same framework may just keep you in the wrong rhythm and you’ll make the same mistake all over again.

4) Same thing I do when I get to feeling like that on the first draft. Bite down on that bullet and start writing.

5) I spent my first draft just trying to plug ahead and make a skeleton I could use for the subsequent drafts. I didn’t go out of my way to make sure the writing was good(it really really wasn’t). I didn’t really describe much of anything, or do much in the way of flourishes. I’m trying more of that stuff now in the third draft, and I think it’s easier to know where to put it with the framework there.

1) I’m rewriting, mostly because I made a big structural shift that I simply can’t edit my way around. Basically, I’m junking my framework. :P Like Miel, I have problems actually finishing a draft, so actually getting the first one down was a big thing.

2) I’m taking a break as well, ostensibly to actually think about the issues that were in the first draft rather than just diving in and making the same mistakes all over again. Although, like sansafro, I’m not doing all that much (except I did come up with a cool idea about telegram wires)

3) Since I’m essentially starting over, I have the same old framework, square 1 issues, but at least I have a nice comprehensive list of things to write about! I’m going to do what I did last time and essentially plan out events…it really helped me figure out where I was going.

4) sansafro’s approach is probably best. :) What I’ve also realized is that when you tell yourself ‘I am going to do this’ enough, it becomes almost inevitable. If you even entertain the belief that maybe you won’t do it today, you almost certainly won’t.

To me, subsequent drafts always seem exponentially better than the previous draft. There are many times that I’m reading through a first draft and I think to myself ‘Why is this so bad? How did I write this?’. So I write a second draft, changing the things that were bothering me. And I’ll look at my completed second draft and it’ll seem exponentially better than the first. But if I leave the second draft for a while and read it later, I’ll think the same thing about it: ‘Why is this so bad?’ Then I’ll rewrite it into a third draft. Which I’ll read and believe to be exponentially better than the second. And repeat.

If I had ever completed multiple drafts, this would be my life.

Anyway, the good thing about this thread is that it’s getting me thinking about my draft again! I actually feel inspired, so thanks for that.

1) I haven’t been because I’m lazy. I do completely rewrite some scenes that were either really terrible or that have changed too much not to completely rewrite them. Of course, I started rewriting before I finished my first draft, so it may be a little different if I had actually finished it the first time around.
2) I have thought about this question a lot, and what I think I might do when I finish this draft is write something else for a while, and then go back to it with fresh eyes. What I’ve been doing with this rewrite, though, is having the documents open side-by-side and rewriting chapters like that.
3) First drafts, I am mostly just trying to finish, but with second drafts, it goes a little faster because I already know what’s happened and what needs to happen. But right now, I’m getting past what I had written before and back into first draft territory, so slow-goings.
4) I’m bad at this. I can feel really energized about writing when I’m just going through scenes in my head, but when I actually sit down to write them, they don’t come out right. I also tend to think of ideas for other stories while I’m writing, and then I want to go write them instead. What I do to try and get reenergized for the current story, though, is just to run through scenes in my head that I’m excited to write for whatever reason. Then I want to write, so I can get to that part and write it. I also find that writing late at night makes me more inspired to write for some reason.
5) If I let a story sit for a while and go back and reread it, it doesn’t seem like I wrote it. It seems like I’m reading someone else’s story. It’s weird.

‘How did I come up with this at all?’

I do that with specific lines and phrases. Sometimes I think, “Why did you think this was good?” And every once in a while, I think (this has mostly happened with short stories), “You can’t write this well. How did you come up with that?”