sharplittleteeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sharplittleteeth) wrote2011-07-01 11:00 am
sharplittleteeth) wrote2011-07-01 11:00 am
Entry tags:
Draft Three
Today's the first of July. Which means today I start Draft Three of the novel.
I wasted ten years trying to write my first novel. What actually happened was I wrote the first 20,000 words, got stuck, deleted everything, and started again from scratch.
And then I did that FIVE MORE TIMES.
That's ten years of my life as a writer I'll never get back.
So with this novel I had a plan. Three drafts. Each with a specific focus, and a list of things I wasn't going to worry about. And each with a specific end point: producing something that I can SHOW other people.
My breakdown was this:
DRAFT ONE: IDEAS
Dig up the ideas, get them down on the page. Don't worry about style. Don't worry about plot. Just get the raw ideas down. This draft was like a painter's rough sketch -- all about the mood and the possibilities. The details would come later.
Draft One took about three months to write. Only one person ever read it.
Because it was a mess. But it was an interesting mess. A mess with possibility. Which is where Draft Two came in.
DRAFT TWO: STRUCTURE
For Draft Two, I took all the rough, raw material from the first draft, and beat it with a sledgehammer until it formed a coherent plot.
This draft was all about the plot. If I had to write a clumsy sentence to get a scene moving, I'd write a clumsy sentence. Style can be fixed in draft three.
Draft Two took about 10 months to finish.
It was hard work. Mostly because I'm an overambitious idiot and decided to write a plot that alternates between the present and the past. Except I wrote all the past storyline first, then all the present storyline, then had to play chronological Tetris to make the two storylines fit together.
Hint: Don't do this. Save yourself the headache. Start at the beginning, and write forwards from there.
I gave Draft Three to lots of people. I wanted a wide sampling of feedback to see which reported problems were actual problems, and which where just the reader's personal preferences.
(I also wanted lots of people to tell me my book was wonderful and therefore I'm a worthwhile human being. But I'm a writer. We are inherently insecure like that.)
I received lots of great feedback. Two or three big problems were reported by pretty much all readers. And I learnt that everywhere I thought I was being subtle or understated, I was actually just being confusing. This is good to know. And so now I'm embarking on...
DRAFT THREE: FINE TUNING
Draft Three is where I a) smooth off all the plot-bricks so they sit snugly together, b) polish the prose so that it's exciting to read and c) fix all the damn typos.
I'll get a friend or two to proofread it when it's done. But mostly, Draft Three is about producing the manuscript that I will send out to publishers.
I'm hoping it will take about a month.
I'm hoping it will take about a month because the Text Prize is announced at the end of July, and I entered the second draft of my novel into it.
I don't expect to win. Entering was more about having a big, immovable deadline that I had to meet, and the subsequent feeling of progress when I did. But the moment I know that I didn't win, I want to send my book out to other publishers.
And then I start writing the next one.
I wasted ten years trying to write my first novel. What actually happened was I wrote the first 20,000 words, got stuck, deleted everything, and started again from scratch.
And then I did that FIVE MORE TIMES.
That's ten years of my life as a writer I'll never get back.
So with this novel I had a plan. Three drafts. Each with a specific focus, and a list of things I wasn't going to worry about. And each with a specific end point: producing something that I can SHOW other people.
My breakdown was this:
DRAFT ONE: IDEAS
Dig up the ideas, get them down on the page. Don't worry about style. Don't worry about plot. Just get the raw ideas down. This draft was like a painter's rough sketch -- all about the mood and the possibilities. The details would come later.
Draft One took about three months to write. Only one person ever read it.
Because it was a mess. But it was an interesting mess. A mess with possibility. Which is where Draft Two came in.
DRAFT TWO: STRUCTURE
For Draft Two, I took all the rough, raw material from the first draft, and beat it with a sledgehammer until it formed a coherent plot.
This draft was all about the plot. If I had to write a clumsy sentence to get a scene moving, I'd write a clumsy sentence. Style can be fixed in draft three.
Draft Two took about 10 months to finish.
It was hard work. Mostly because I'm an overambitious idiot and decided to write a plot that alternates between the present and the past. Except I wrote all the past storyline first, then all the present storyline, then had to play chronological Tetris to make the two storylines fit together.
Hint: Don't do this. Save yourself the headache. Start at the beginning, and write forwards from there.
I gave Draft Three to lots of people. I wanted a wide sampling of feedback to see which reported problems were actual problems, and which where just the reader's personal preferences.
(I also wanted lots of people to tell me my book was wonderful and therefore I'm a worthwhile human being. But I'm a writer. We are inherently insecure like that.)
I received lots of great feedback. Two or three big problems were reported by pretty much all readers. And I learnt that everywhere I thought I was being subtle or understated, I was actually just being confusing. This is good to know. And so now I'm embarking on...
DRAFT THREE: FINE TUNING
Draft Three is where I a) smooth off all the plot-bricks so they sit snugly together, b) polish the prose so that it's exciting to read and c) fix all the damn typos.
I'll get a friend or two to proofread it when it's done. But mostly, Draft Three is about producing the manuscript that I will send out to publishers.
I'm hoping it will take about a month.
I'm hoping it will take about a month because the Text Prize is announced at the end of July, and I entered the second draft of my novel into it.
I don't expect to win. Entering was more about having a big, immovable deadline that I had to meet, and the subsequent feeling of progress when I did. But the moment I know that I didn't win, I want to send my book out to other publishers.
And then I start writing the next one.