Vent: My writing group loved my first draft but hated the rewrite

I spent 3 months polishing a fantasy short story based on their feedback, and now they say I lost the original voice. Has anyone else had a revision that completely flopped after the first version worked?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_charlie23d ago

Oh man, I read something by Stephen King once where he said the first draft is you telling yourself the story and the second draft is you telling everyone else. Sounds like your group fell in love with the version you were telling yourself. That raw spark is tough to keep when you start polishing everything up for other people.

xena37323d ago

Jumping in here because I totally get what you're saying. That Stephen King quote is spot on, it's like your first draft has this messy, honest heart that gets lost when you try to clean it up for everyone else. I've seen it happen in writing groups before, people get so caught up in fixing typos and smoothing out sentences that they kill the whole vibe. The raw version has a pulse, and sometimes you just gotta trust that messy spark more than the polished version.

the_lee23d ago

I get why you're frustrated, but maybe the first draft had a raw energy that got smoothed over... sometimes feedback can sand off all the rough edges that made it interesting in the first place. A cleaner story isn't always a better one if it loses that spark people connected with. Your original voice was what hooked them, so maybe try blending the polish with the messy parts they loved.