Tuesday, August 11, 2020

A Redo


At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements.
😉

I rediscovered Good Eats on the Cooking Channel. I've been recording and rewatching episodes for months now. Alton Brown even has a "new" show called Good Eats: Reloaded where he takes one of the episodes and reworks the recipes. Which got me thinking... 

What if you could go and redo/re-edit/revamp your finished (published) work from bygone years? Would you? 

14 comments:

  1. Do blogs count? I've been blogging since 2003 and still have all my old blogs saved. I have lots of recipes, some that I would like to repeat but will tweak and update the photos first :)

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  2. I actually got to do that with my first published book. And I'm glad I did.

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  3. I thought about doing that once. It wasn't a bad idea, but I wasn't interested enough in the concept anymore. That's really what it takes to rework something. The drive to do it.

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  4. I probably would if I reread it and didn't like how it came across or if there was false info in it that I lately learned was false. Otherwise I would leave it alone.

    Betty

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  5. No, that just feels like the author, artist, blogger, chef, ran out of new ideas and needs to rehash the old stuff to have any content. What's done is done. If one is more experienced now, has more practice in their craft, then do something new. I hate remakes or reboots of movies and television shows! Or "new endings" to old novels.

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  6. Fixing an unwanted edit:
    I have one published piece in my old college paper. The editor took some sort of bs poetic license & changed every instance of 'football' with 'soccer'. I had written about my year abroad in Germany & some of the linguistic stumbling blocks I had encountered while their. For ex., their use of the term 'football' instead of ours (soccer) was part and parcel of the problem. The edits made the piece largely nonsensical. I'm not bitter; it's only been 22 years.

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  7. I've written second editions to career books, in which I put in a lot of new stuff. I didn't revise any original text other than to update details with current information.

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  8. I think continue on...maybe a part 2 to a story. Like mini movie.

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  9. I believe a major newspaper comic strip (can't remember its name) was rerun starting at the beginning when the woman who drew it developed a serious health disorder and could no longer write it full time. She did redraw some of the early strips, as I recall. Now if I can only remember its name.

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    Replies
    1. I bet she appreciated being able to do that.

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  10. I don't know what I would do since I am not a writer. If I wrote something and it tanked, I probably would redo it but if it was a hit, probably not.

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I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.