First Draft
Wednesday 7th September, 2022 16:36 Comments: 0
Around six months ago I said I was hoping to write a novel (or three). For various reasons I didn't get around to writing anything properly for the first month, but at the end of last month I finished writing the "vomit draft" of one of my rough ideas for a novel.
Many writers like to give their own methods for writing, although as I've never heard of their work I do wonder if some people's advice falls under George Bernard Shaw's quote "those who can't, teach", but the general consensus is there will be multiple drafts as you turn your pile of crap into something you feel comfortable publishing (the advantage of digital copies is it's much easier to fix things like typos, although you can't usually get away with fixing a major plot hole).
Stephen King apparently only needs 3 drafts, but he has written a lot of successful books and seems to know what he's doing (either that or he's a massive liar). Most people seem to suggest 4-13 drafts, although I suspect anything that needs more than a dozen drafts probably should be put in the bin. Some people count the outline as the first draft, although I wouldn't. After trying to "pants" my way through a novel that I'll likely abandon (despite writing 81844 words so far), this one had an outline. In hindsight, trying to write a time travel novel might have been a mistake, as it made it far more complicated than your traditional "boy meets girl" style books. After skimming through the draft I've already spotted one anachronism, and there's another time-related annoyance I can solve in a couple of ways.
The "vomit draft" seems to be the first thing people write. Mine's arguably not actually a vomit draft as I fixed typos (autocorrect fixed most of them), I went back to flesh out several "SOMETHING GOES HERE" type placeholder values, and I even did a bit of research in places. Hopefully the grammar, spelling, and punctuation is pretty good; but I still need to write a few more drafts. In terms of things to review, there's the main story arc, the subplots, character arcs, before I get as far as asking someone else to read it. I know the word count isn't meant to be important, but I'm up to 54683 words and I'm pretty sure that number is only going to go up by another 2000-3000 words as I go through my review process (and maybe I'll write my own blog entry on how [not] to write a novel?). It won't be the longest novel, but hopefully the story will be worth reading whenever it's done.
And if it does well (i.e. people say they like it; I know it's not going to sell many copies) and I can find the time (doubtful once I'm employed again), I already have a rough outline for two more novels in the potential trilogy.
Many writers like to give their own methods for writing, although as I've never heard of their work I do wonder if some people's advice falls under George Bernard Shaw's quote "those who can't, teach", but the general consensus is there will be multiple drafts as you turn your pile of crap into something you feel comfortable publishing (the advantage of digital copies is it's much easier to fix things like typos, although you can't usually get away with fixing a major plot hole).
Stephen King apparently only needs 3 drafts, but he has written a lot of successful books and seems to know what he's doing (either that or he's a massive liar). Most people seem to suggest 4-13 drafts, although I suspect anything that needs more than a dozen drafts probably should be put in the bin. Some people count the outline as the first draft, although I wouldn't. After trying to "pants" my way through a novel that I'll likely abandon (despite writing 81844 words so far), this one had an outline. In hindsight, trying to write a time travel novel might have been a mistake, as it made it far more complicated than your traditional "boy meets girl" style books. After skimming through the draft I've already spotted one anachronism, and there's another time-related annoyance I can solve in a couple of ways.
The "vomit draft" seems to be the first thing people write. Mine's arguably not actually a vomit draft as I fixed typos (autocorrect fixed most of them), I went back to flesh out several "SOMETHING GOES HERE" type placeholder values, and I even did a bit of research in places. Hopefully the grammar, spelling, and punctuation is pretty good; but I still need to write a few more drafts. In terms of things to review, there's the main story arc, the subplots, character arcs, before I get as far as asking someone else to read it. I know the word count isn't meant to be important, but I'm up to 54683 words and I'm pretty sure that number is only going to go up by another 2000-3000 words as I go through my review process (and maybe I'll write my own blog entry on how [not] to write a novel?). It won't be the longest novel, but hopefully the story will be worth reading whenever it's done.
And if it does well (i.e. people say they like it; I know it's not going to sell many copies) and I can find the time (doubtful once I'm employed again), I already have a rough outline for two more novels in the potential trilogy.