Have you ever gone back and reread your earliest published stories – not with the intention of revising them, but simply as a reader? If you have, I’d be curious to compare notes with you, since I’ve done just that. I enjoy rereading my favorite books, so rereading my own books wasn’t something unusual for me, though it did take a little courage.
If you did go back and reread them, what would you hope to find? On one hand, we’d like to find that our newest stories are better written than our earliest ones. That we have, indeed, learned something in the intervening years and tens of thousands of words we’ve written. But how much better? A lot? Or a little? If our newer stories seem too much better, what does that say about our first works? Would they be embarrassing? Of course, if we’re writing marvelous books these days, our early books could still be wonderful and we could still say that we’ve made significant progress. We’d have our cake and eat it too. But if our current work is not quite marvelous, how much “progress” would we be comfortable with, without being embarrassed to be found dead in a ditch with our first works? I suppose that the best case scenario is that we’d find that our first books are good and our most recent books are better. Kinda splitting the difference.
Well, as I mentioned at the start, I, with some trepidation, decided to go back and reread some of my early books. What I found, somewhat to my surprise, was that they were still good. Darn good, in fact, defying my expectations. Oh, I found a few typos, (imagine that!) and a few sentences that I’d like to rewrite, but on the whole, despite my efforts to write crisper, shorter sentences, these first books read remarkably well. Viewed one way, this result can be seen as rather alarming – suggesting little or no progress in a decade and several million words typed. But on reflection, I found several explanations for this phenomenon.
The first one is that my earliest self-published works are not my first written works. Prior to writing my self-published books, I’d written a fantasy novel, a SF novella, and a short story all of which I shopped around in the late 1970’s without success. After that, I’d spent a year planning another novel, wrote a YA novel, and puttered around on other stories for several decades. Thus, I already had my earliest works tucked away in the drawer, just like they say you should, before embarking on writing the books I eventually self-published.
Secondly, setting out to write seriously at age 60, after half a century of reading books, I feel that I had absorbed the art of storytelling, at least for the type of stories I wanted to write. I could write them more or less “by ear.” I knew what I wanted to write and wrote those stories, just as I’m doing now.
The third factor is that, as I’ve mentioned in other essays, I wrote these stories to my specifications, just to please myself. They’re custom-designed to please me, so it’s not surprising that I, at least, still find them very enjoyable.
The last, and perhaps the most telling factor, is that I am writing within the narrow limits of my talent. I write episodic novels. I don’t have amazing, mind-blowing science fiction concepts to explore. I have nothing profound to say about anything. And my range of narrators and characters is very limited. My characters are like old time movie actors, where you can still see the “movie star” in whatever character he or she plays in my stories. This is just as true of the stories I wrote ten years ago, as it is for my most recent stories. They haven’t changed significantly because they remain the type of stories I can write. My talent won’t take me any further. Nor, to be honest, have I any motivation to push beyond these stories, since I write what I like to read. Oh, I’d like to write them better – shorter sentences, fewer “and”(s) – that sort of stuff. But I have no ambition beyond that. I’m comfortable with my limits. I must have been standing behind the door when ambition was being handed out.
So while my exploration of my early works resulted in spending some enjoyable evenings rereading some of my favorite books, your experience may differ. You are likely more ambitious than me, and may’ve written increasingly challenging stories over the years. Or perhaps stories in different genres that might make going back to your earliest books more of a leap. Without a doubt, you were younger when you started writing and have matured along with your writing, which may also color your perception of your early work as well. And yet, skill in writing is not always the final arbitrator of enjoyment. Enthusiasm and originality may compensate for less polished prose. I would hope that when all is said and done, you too would find pleasure in your early works, should you decide to revisit them. And that with all the work and worry that went into them now years behind you, you can approach them simply as a reader and fully enjoy the worlds and characters that you, somehow, created.
In any event, I am certain we would all be curious to hear about your experiences in rereading your early work, or what you would expect to find if you did so.
Writers Supporting Writers 
It’s been a few years since I read any of my early books, the ones I wrote in 2000 to 2005 and published in the early 2010s. I the prose is better in my recent efforts, but I’m not sure they are superior in an overall sense. Interesting topic, Chuck.
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Thanks for using your star power to bring more readers to this blog, Audrey. Much appreciated.
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You’re welcome, Chuck!
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I occasionally re-visit my earlier efforts. Something I’m doing more of these days as I recycle older stories for a podcast I started. I actually think some of my older stuff is better than what I do now. Something has happened as my writing has evolved. I’m unintentionally stripping away a lot of the details — description, inner monologues, etc. — and just telling the story. I’m not sure why that’s happening, but I see things I did in those older stories that I just don’t do as much anymore. And I like what I used to do. I’m not sure this necessarily means the older stuff is better, but the older stuff seems more … well developed?
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I re-read some of my early works, and I have to say, I’m a little embarrassed by them. My first two books are pretty weak, if I’m being honest. I’ve thought about unpublishing them, but I figure I’ll leave them out there as historical curiosities. 😀 Besides, I tell myself, if I hadn’t written those early books, I wouldn’t have learned all the lessons I needed to write better books later. (There are a couple specific things in my more recent books where I can say, ‘I took this idea from an earlier book, and made it good this time.’)
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Parts of Some Day Days are from my first efforts in my late phase of writing. Parts of it were an experiment in telling a story mostly through dialog, and it is only a fraction of the story I had imagined. In short it is a curiosity. Still, I spent a lot of time working on it over a number of years, and I’m quite fond of it. I recognize its many flaws, but I published it anyway because, well, why not? What did I have to lose? That is the beauty of self-publishing — you have nothing to lose, and maybe some readers to gain.
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My thorny editor’s hat won’t allow me to enjoy any of my writing, early or current.
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Perhaps I’m lucky in that I don’t take my writing all that seriously. I used to work at a daily newspaper and commercial printing company, and despite our best efforts, mistakes will get printed and out the door. All you can do is shrug and say “Oh, well.” Some things you just have to let go.
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Ah Mole…throw that damn hat in the bin! I’ll bet that if you re-read some of your writing you’d get be pleasantly surprised.
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When I’m having trouble writing something new I go back and read my early poems. I usually end up editing them.
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I’ve done that as well, but not this time around.
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I have done this, expecting to be disappointed, but apart from the very first, I was pleasantly surprised…
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I don’t even dare to reread the stuff I wrote prior the pieces I ended up self-publishing. They just paid my dues.
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My earliest efforts never saw the publication light of day. (What happens in workshop stays in workshop.) I’m pleasantly surprised by rereading my early published stories. I wrote this? It’s not half bad. 🙂
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Liz, my experience is the same as yours. I think being fortunate enough to have professors in college who encouraged each of us to write well in our own style rather than forcing us to write the stand 500-word freshman essay was a huge confidence builder and allowed us to hone what we each did well. (Fortunately, my style adapts well to that formula.)
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I had only one writing course in college, an agricultural journalism course. But I did have to write term papers. Back in my day it was with a manual typewriter, and I could never spell, so I had to daze the profs with style and artwork so they’d overlook all the typos. That was my creative writing course.
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Good post, certainly one for a writer to consider in depth.
All efforts prior to 2000; consigned to bins- not so much stories as working out issues.
I then re-jinked one character in a Fantasy era, written in a mostly comic / action style; a trilogy that petered out.
Take two same ‘universe’ in later centuries, basically another trilogy, more characters, more emphasis on plots, less comedy. First trilogy used as vague background (history/legend status)
Anyway when working on series re-reading is advisable so Continuity is maintained. And self-publishing with few sales allows the luxury of re-writes.
Basically re-reading the second trilogy was actually fun (apart from those malicious typos which sneak in when you’ve closed the document), an immersing in the world as if I was a regular visitor and the characters were friends and associates. Truth be known encountering the occasional ‘Wow! Did I write that? – Heck! It’s good, really good!’ interlude is one to be treasured.
Re-reading is important, you can gauge your progress, perspective and sometimes mine up forgotten little gems of style or construction (we all have them- we wouldn’t be writing otherwise)
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Like you, I’ve gone over my earliest self published stories and slightly revised them after I first published them. And I’ve gone back to fix my many typos many times. Recently I even borrowed a setting and lifted a passage from my first novella from 40 years ago. It was a passage and a setting I always liked, so it was good to reuse it.
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Like you, I write the stories I want to read, and I particularly like your concept of writing “by ear.” I’ve been a voracious reader since I was eight years old and I learned to write by a kind of mental osmosis. High Five. 😀
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I’ve gone back and tightened up my earliest works. Even though they were traditionally published and acceptable, I just couldn’t leave them with all the filter words and the vast array of dialog tags. Lol. They tended toward wordiness too and I cut thousands of words. I’m glad I did. Like you, it was reassuring to see that my craft had strengthened over 15 years of writing. Phew!
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I have not recently re-read my early works. They all lay neatly in a binder just waiting to be read. I may just have to sit down and give them a read this week.
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