D'oh

[the_deep_magic]

Just kind of a random question for fic writers -- if you run across a minor mistake (or, hell, a major one) in an old fic, do you go back and fix it?

I'm rereading Somewhere That's Green and I realized I mentioned something about them buying props at the Pottery Barn (an upscale furniture and decor place) when I meant to say Old Time Pottery (a dirt-cheap decorations and knick-knacks warehouse).  Though Old Time Pottery doesn't really work, either, since they only have stores in a few states in the south and in my head the fic is set in California.  So the line doesn't really make sense as it is, but I feel like if I start fixing things in old fics, I'll never stop. 

Aside from little grammatical things and typos, I try to leave old fics alone -- once they're posted, they're done.  Plus, if I fiddle with it, I have to go back and change the word count or make sure it's the same number of words... yeah, that's the kind of thing that will bother me if it doesn't match up.  So I'm just curious what other people do.

In this case, I think I'm going to change it, and just make sure I replace it with an equal number of words.  IT IS SLASH FIC, SO I CAN GET ANAL IF I WANT TO.  Hurrrrr.

Comments

[verizonhorizon.livejournal.com]

I change things ALL THE TIME. Even old stuff. Problem is, let's say I change something on my LJ, but then don't fix it on the hard-drive copy OR the K/S Archive, so then it's in pieces and a mess and just yeah. Yeah.

Sorry if that's incoherent but tonight was the Supernatural finale.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yeah, I didn't even think about that, since I've started reposting stuff on AO3. And I'd have to change it both places or it would drive me nuts.

And, as someone who's never seen Supernatural, it's sort of funny watching everybody FREAK THE FUCK OUT and imagining what could possibly be going on. :oD

[ewinfic.livejournal.com]

I go back and change little misspellings and things all the time, if I spot them. I don't really worry about continuity, though I might leave a comment or something to the effect of "oops" on the entry.

I srsly don't worry about the changing wordcount. My wordcounts are accurate to within 500 words IF I'M LUCKY THAT DAY.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I HAVE to have the exact word count right. I even go back and count the number of &&& section breaks and subtract them from the total, since Word counts them as, uh, words.

It's possible I might have a problem.

[ewinfic.livejournal.com]

I think I was forcibly trained out of that by using multiple word processors; word sometimes (when I send long things for beta), notepad++ for all drafting and most fics, and then Semagic for posting.

THEY ALL COUNT WORDS SLIGHTLY DIFFERENTLY.

You learn to estimate. OR YOU DIE.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, AO3 counts words differently and I can't figure out how/why. I'm not even going to ask where the word count view is in Semagic, because if I haven't found it yet, I certainly don't need it.

I CANNOT ESTIMATE. I AM ESTIMATION-CHALLENGED. SERIOUSLY, IT HAS CAUSED ME PROBLEMS.

[perdiccas.livejournal.com]

Man, I totally fiddle with stuff like that all the time.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of afraid if I START doing that, I'll never stop!

[phenylic.livejournal.com]

*RIMSHOT!*


I'm constantly going back to my old fics and fixing things, and I don't really bother with keeping track of the word count. /terrible

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Not terrible at all! I mean, as long as the word count doesn't say 10,000 when the thing's only a paragraph long. I wish stuff like that didn't bother me as much as it does.

[zjofierose.livejournal.com]

noooo... i am like you, way too anal for my own good. i have to just leave it alone when i'm done, or else it devolves into a cycle of nitpicking and recrimination.

it helps that i almost NEVER reread anything i've written after i post it. makes me crazy. :)

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I can't help the rereads, but it's usually good -- by the time I post something, I'm often utterly sick of it and don't think it's very good. But then I reread later and see the stuff I did well (and not so well, but the good usually outweighs the bad).

[janice-lester.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. If I'm rereading and spot a mistake, I have to go back and correct it. The exception is when I think that it's not a random typo-type thing or brain fart, but is actually just evidence that I wasn't as good a writer then or didn't know my fandom so well. For instance, there's an early fic of mine in which I repeatedly have Bones think of himself as Bones. It irritates me every time I reread the thing, because I've since got it through my head that only Jim calls him Bones so I'd need an actual reason to have him think of himself that way. In that case it feels like correcting all those Boneses would be dishonest, pasting over a part of my past.

All this said, I don't archive beyond LJ and DW, so it's not a huge hassle for me to change things at all. I know for a lot of folks it would be a fairly mammoth undertaking to correct even a small typo across all the places they have that fic archived. It's a YMMV and no one should be judging you either way, IMHO.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone's judging me (er, at least I hope not) -- I was just wondering how other people handle it. And I've been tempted to go fiddle with characterization-type stuff, but I agree with what you said about pasting over the past. Plus, I can see how I've come along as a writer, right?

[medea-fic.livejournal.com]

I try not to reread anything I've read unless I'm drunk enough to pretend someone else wrote it, because I'm brutally critical of my own work and then I depress myself.

But if I do notice a typo or a continuity error, or a line that I don't think works on rereading, I do change it. I only post on my journal and AO3 so it's not a big deal to change for me. (The biggest deal is usually making sure I don't accidentally delete EVERYTHING, since I'm drunk. :) )

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I actually tend to be much less critical of posted stuff after a few months. While I'm writing it, though, it's a constant litany of "ARRRGH, this isn't good enough!"

[medea-fic.livejournal.com]

Now I'm all annoyed because I can't go back and edit "read" to "written" in my comment...

IT'S A SICKNESS AND NO GOOD WILL COME OF IT!! :)

[therumjournals.livejournal.com]

if you run across a minor mistake (or, hell, a major one) in an old fic, do you go back and fix it? - i definitely change typos/missing words/line breaks, etc. I think I've changed a couple things like the one you mentioned, where it's something that I meant to do - like a word I meant to change - at the time and it's only a little thing that's not central to the plot. I haven't done that since uploading stuff on AO3...but honestly, I'd probably just go back and change it in both places.

Unlike some people who've commented, I read my old stuff ALL THE TIME. So there are definitely times when I cringe a little at style or like using the same word 3 times in a paragraph or little continuity errors - but i don't change those, i just chalk it up to the evolution of a writer :-) It helps that I'm not overly critical of myself...if anything I'm usually like "whoa, how is this so good, i'm not this good a writer!"

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm glad to know someone else rereads their own stuff! I do think it's helped me in some ways -- there are certain phrases and sentence structures that I must really like, because they show up again and again, and I can be more careful about using them.