[Steven Lake]

For the uninitiated, to "burn down" a literary work is to take a fully or partially completed story, rip out all or a vast majority of it, reduce it to the originally envisioned core plot, and then start over again. Hence "burning it down".

I ask that because I've had to do that numerous times with one particular novel I've been working on, even going so far as to change the core plot several times along the way seeking just the right mixture to make the story work. It's not like trying an idea, failing, and giving up. This is basically razing the story down to the bones and trying again. I figure it's a fairly common thing, but how common, I guess, and to what degree, is my ultimate question.