Editing.

[XVLegend--D]

How long would you wait until you start editing your first draft? Would you wait an hour, a day, or a week?

[Gemini]

Depends on how polished you want the finished product and how many drafts you plan to go through, but if it's a serious attempt at something then I'd wait at least a week, if not longer. Otherwise, if it's just for fun (like for a fanfic or something) a few days should be enough. Truth be told, most of the chapters I ever uploaded were first drafts with maybe a couple of once-overs after, LOL.

[Azdgari]

How long do you have?

The longer you wait, the better. Regardless of how much you edit, if you look at it again in a week, you'll tear your hair out at the stuff you missed and could've done better. Then, a month after that, you'll curse and wonder how you could miss such obvious mistakes.

But we're rarely that patient as writers.

[DGFone]

There's also the age old wisdom on how to get better at anything: practice. Just by writing more, you will get better at it, editing or no editing. Editing fixes errors in the writing, but it doesn't due much for actually improving it, not as much as simply more writing does.

Which is where some selfish self-promotion comes in with the reminder that the current MLK Writing contest still has three days left before the voting round! Still only one submission in (though I know there is another one coming in soon), but the more stories we get, the better!

Link here: viewtopic.php?f=155&p=1422043#p1421737