Holly Lisle on One-Pass Manuscript Revision.
If this works for her, and others, more power to you all, truly.
But I think far too often one- or two-draft writers fail to understand, because this is so very much their writing process does not mean it is everyone’s process. And I’m a little weary of articles like this one, that assume they know the one true way and blithely refer to my process as dithering, or trying to make my manuscript a gleaming perfect pearl, or as wasting time in any way. Every year or so, it seems, someone else comes along to tell writers like me how with a little work, and a willingness to get over our pretensions, writers like me could write books more quickly and efficiently. In one way or another, these folks will often go on to tell explain that writing this way is what Real Writers do, after all.
I use multiple passes to layer things in, to learn what the story is about, to take out what doesn’t belong and replace it with other things. Marking up a single hard-copy and then going in and doing the things I noted in a single revision pass isn’t even going to begin to cover these things. Sometimes I find myself wondering whether a one- or two-pass process can allow for layering and depth and anything but a very surface story–except that I know writers who write books I very much admire this way.
I think Real Writers understand that we each do what works, though, and that one person’s process is not another person’s process, and that saying so is not mere stubborness, and that any advice we offer up is nothing more than what worked for us, and may or may not work for someone else.
(Link from lnhammer)