First Drafts

[Mythos]

How do you guys go about finishing your rough draft? Is it a rush to the finish or do you edit as you go? What do you leave out? How much planning do you go through before you actually write?

 

[Ophiucha]

I go through a first draft quickly. Usually about a month or two. It's when your will to write is at its peak, most often, with the idea still fresh in your mind and not much to work off of but your notes. Later drafts are a more gentle process, with a good backing and more time to edit it out and think critically. My planning varies. Often, my first draft is my initial planning, since I can write something mostly coherent as a first draft and hit all the basics. It's as likely to stick as an outline is, anyway (which is to say, maybe a thematic element or two will still be in the end result, but likely few of the initial characters or plot points). I don't leave anything out, though. My first drafts are as long, or longer, as the end result. Often longer, since you're just extrapolating on ideas instead of cohesiveness.

 

[Kelise]

I kinda edit where I want things to go. I write, but then I go back and add parts here and there, and go until I feel finished, jumping back and forth between chapters because writing gives me ideas for foreshadowing, or I'll read back and realise I haven't done anything eith x plot point and I feel it should go vaguely 'here', so I'll create a chapter and start writing there a bit as well so I don't forget what I want to do. Then by the time I get there, I'll probably move it.

So I edit in that way as I write, but sentence structure and grammar etc are edited after it's all done.

So I kinda plan as I write. I kinda edit in a certain way as I write...

As for everything else, I've never got a MS to anything I'd consider ready to send off to publishers. I always get distracted by another project, and I utterly hate my work and totally lack confidence, so I'm not sure what my other steps are just yet.

 

[Kate]

Depends on what I'm working on (and whether or not it's Nanowrimo or not).

For short stories I go through and write the whole thing in one go and then go back over it, changing whatever.

For longer things, I've never got to the end of a real first draft to be able to answer this properly. (another sufferer of creative ADD here!)

But as far as outline vs straight writing goes: I used to be a total write by the seat of my pants kind of girl. Then I started plotting out things, scene by scene. I do tend to get to the end of stories more when I go right off the top of my head as fast as I can. But rarely do I return to any of that writing. And often after I've plotted everything out I decide I hate it and start on something new. So. I've come into a new hybrid style - very much like Katharine's.

The project I'm doing now, and I'm determined to finish this (yeah, yeah, head that one before, Kate), I'm plotting out a few scenes in advance, fleshing that out and going back and forth to add in this and that, and then taking a few days to plan where the next scenes are headed. Then I plan to go back over the thing as a whole and redraft from there. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually finish this MS!

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

I tend to do limited editing. If I spot that I've double-used a word too close together, I'll go back and tweak that, sometimes. I fix spelling errors. I know you're not "supposed" to, but I'd rather do it as I type. I don't misspell things often enough for that to reduce my speed much anyway (a "normal" writing hour is about 1200 words for me; I can live with that).

I don't usually go *back* to make changes, though. I might tweak a sentence as I write it, or just after I write it. But you won't usually find me going back to previous pages until the piece is done.

 

[Mdnight Falling]

I rarely ever purposely write a rough draft. I write a version of the story.. Then reread it and rewrite it, this goes on for several "drafts" until I'm happy with the story >.<

 

[Ravana]

I write what I've got, when I've got it. Sometimes that results in a "first draft"; more often, I get things done in chunks and link them up later. I reread and edit the portions I already have, once I run out of steam on a particular section; usually in the process of doing so I get another chunk. I rarely "plan," since I know that I'm not going to stick with one anyway.

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

I tend to edit as I write. Not the best way to do things, judging by what professional writers say, but if a line/paragraph doesn't sit right in my head I can't move on. I envy those who can skip over such things and resolve them at a later date, but unfortunately my brain just doesn't work that way.

 

[Dr.Dorkness]

I tend to edit as I write. Not the best way to do things, judging by what professional writers say, but if a line/paragraph doesn't sit right in my head I can't move on. I envy those who can skip over such things and resolve them at a later date, but unfortunately my brain just doesn't work that way.

I have the same problem. Everything has to fit at the first moment. But sometimes when I read back stuff still changes.

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

I have the same problem. Everything has to fit at the first moment.

It's not such a terrible thing. At least it means we get things right first time round.

 

[Dr.Dorkness]

It's not such a terrible thing. At least it means we get things right first time round.

Yeah that is certainly the good part

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Editing as you write is not so bad. John Scalzi started a book January 3rd, finished it March 7th, proofread it for major errors that afternoon and was done - sent it to a publisher right away. It'll probably be out sometime in 2012. Someone asked him about revision, and he commented that he does any revision he needs as he writes.

He's not alone; there are plenty of other writers who do that.

(Edit: Link to his post - 2011 March 08 « Whatever)

 

[Dr.Dorkness]

Editing as you write is not so bad. John Scalzi started a book January 3rd, finished it March 7th, proofread it for major errors that afternoon and was done - sent it to a publisher right away. It'll probably be out sometime in 2012. Someone asked him about revision, and he commented that he does any revision he needs as he writes.

He's not alone; there are plenty of other writers who do that.

(Edit: Link to his post - 2011 March 08 « Whatever)

Wow, if only I could do that ... Well when I finish the story I Probably need to go back to edit the characterisation (hopes that this is the correct spelling). Then again that depends on how they develop in the story.

 

[Ophiucha]

Eh, I've tried that and produced decent material, but I wouldn't publish anything that came from it. It isn't up to par with the rest of my work, because while the end result was coherent, cohesive, and well-constructed, I can't look at it without thinking "what if I changed all of this so that magic worked like blah, blah, blah" or "I think the story would be more interesting if I combined characters X, Y, and Z." I much prefer drafting, it gives me a better perspective on each choice I make and allows for me to have enough versions of the story - and I do mean versions, my first and last draft differ wildly, down to perspective character, theme, and overall story - to take the best elements from each. That last version, of course, is probably only going to be drafted once-or-twice. The writing itself is more of an edit-as-you-go kind of thing, I think. You can look at a sentence and say "no, I want it to be more concise" and just do that on the spot. But the story and characters have always suffered from being too... typical, I guess, as though I was just writing a story for the sake of writing a story. I need a few parallel pieces to look at to give each character something important. And, frankly, I can't see a way I could have gone from my first draft to my last draft. My first draft followed Lynion (now named Bartholomew) as he sat about his castle alone selling drugs of immortality, and my last draft follows Theodore as he travels to Bartholomew's castle (who now lives with Archibald and his grandson, and sells drugs to turn you into a werewolf) and that is barely even the first half of the novel - the rest of it is Theo questioning the morality of established political norms in his world (which has gone through so many name changes that I could not list them here). If I had just done the first draft, I'd have likely just ended up with a good version of the original story.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Well, gotta remember that means he spent over 200 hours on the book, maybe close to 250. For the folks among us only able to put in an hour a day, that's more like eight months of work. And he's been writing professionally for a couple of decades, and writing fiction as a pro for most of a decade. Not saying that's something all of us can do tomorrow.

But it's a good sign that the "write it once, but write it WELL" attitude is not a dead end or a "bad" path, too.

 

[Sammy]

I plan it out with Kal Bashir's 510+ stage hero's journey and then fill in the gaps. The first draft is not that hard. I make my own films, which means my scripts really are guidelines - each sequence has a function and when that's complete, I end it unless something interesting happens. I would recommend any writer to shoot each of the scenes they write - it is by far the best way to learn and put these things together.

 

[Telcontar]

I try to keep a lot of forward momentum, but I often end up doing a great deal of editing before actually finishing the 'first draft.'

Of course, as I do all my writing on the computer I rarely have discrete drafts. Every once and while when I'm doing a major rewrite I will actually keep the old draft saved somewhere, but generally I work on improving the core manuscript at every turn.