Two mistakes ALL beginning writers make:
1) "Okay, I finished my masterpiece! And I'm not changing a single word! I want my prose to be completely natural - none of that manufactured stuff!"
2) "Okay, I finished my - wait a minute, this is garbage! I'm throwing it out and never thinking about it again!"
Obviously, neither of these approaches is the optimum one, but we all have a tendency to lean one way or the other.
If you read books about writing, you'll notice several consistent themes. One is that a first draft is
always horrible (except for a very few natural writers who are universally hated by the other 99.9% who actually have to work at writing). The other is that your tale, whether it's a super-short or a record-length opus,
always benefits from being edited.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ("Xanadu" and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner") used to write in the morning, have a long, leisurely lunch, and then edit in the afternoon. He called it "killing his darlings" because he generally took out about half of what he'd written earlier in the day.
You'd think that as a writer gains experience, he'd have to edit less. Apparently that's not true. The pros I've heard and read say that they spend as much time editing as when they first started, but the more experience they get the deeper they drill into their work to slice and dice their prose. And as a semi-talented amateur, I have found that to be true in my writing also.
The hardest thing for me is to give each of my characters a consistent voice, so that Lois always sounds like Lois and never like Perry, and so forth. Some writers find it helpful to play out the scenes in their heads as if on a movie or TV screen.
Here's a link to
a thread on writer's block. It's not the same thing, I know, but it lists some good books for writers of all skill levels.
Oh, and here's the most important part - Welcome to the world of writing! I know, you said you'd done some drabbles already (that's something I don't have the guts to try), but stepping out anywhere new takes courage. Congratulations on your first steps! And don't worry about getting lost. If you look around, you'll see all kinds of nifty things you can use.
I look forward to reading your offering. Happy editing!
