how do start out with rough drafts with new manuscript

I think this needs to move to the Writing Novels board??
No offense, Wanda, it's a nice post, just in the wrong spot.

I usually start writing. No prep work. No planning. No maps. No character bios. I get an idea for a scene, I start writing that and continue until the story is finished.

But yeah, this probably should be in either Novels, Basic Writing Questions, or AW Roundtable.

wanda45451964 said:

is that how everyone here comes up with their plots and characters.

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No. I don't send only a few pages at a time to friends, especially not to friends who are likely to reply that everything I write is great. That kind of enthusiasm is wonderful, but it won't improve my manuscript.

I send chapters to a critiquer who gives me feedback on what doesn't work (as well as letting me know what he likes).

Also, this forum is for topics related to PublishAmerica.

It is a new thread, but you put it in the PA forum. You need to go to the main Absolute Write forum and look for an area marked "Roundtable". It'll open a forum for general writing questions like the one you asked here.

wanda45451964 said:

I am sorrry I thought it was a new thread not related to PA

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That's why it should be in another forum, because this forum is about PA. But your thread is not about PA.

I usually know my hero's name, my heroine's name, and where the story begins (time and location wise) and what brings them together. That's it. The rest of it is the story telling itself.

I tend to do bare-bones research at the beginning to get a feel for my time period (I write historicals) and leave the rest of it to be done as I get into the meat of the story. Probably not the most practical way to do it, but it works for me.

That's way too much planning and sketching for me. I usually have a good idea what the story is about, where it's set and my characters speak to me... I may have thought about some key plot points, etc. (what I call set pieces). But mostly, I just start writing. One word after another...

I tried to read the OP, but my eyes were crossing by the fifth line.

Wanda, please separate your thoughts into different paragraphs.

Please use proper punctuation. Your posts get so hard to read that I've started skipping most of them.

At the very least, please put a space after a period.

Regarding the points made in the thread:

Are you saying you start with characters and locations first, then work a story in? I suppose if it works for you, but it seems very limiting to me, especially when you say:

and then work in the story line somehow.

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The word "somehow" here implies that you're forcing a story to come out.

First man that I have ever seen like myself, that if something hot isn't in it in the first 5 pages he loses interest.

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What kind of book is this supposed to be? A romance, I assume? If a reader loses interest in a story because something "hot" doesn't happen in the first five pages, then there are other problems besides its relative "hotness."

After I get it down, then I will write a few pages of it to see how it feels, and then I stop it and print a few pages or email them to a friend to see what they think.

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Some writers do this, but I personally don't encourage it. You're sending someone pages of undeveloped rough draft. This person might be saying "It's great!" and not even be reading it.

is that how everyone here comes up with their plots and characters. The first part, although I feel like everyone has a bouncing board of friends that they do the same thing with that I do.

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Everyone writes differently, and if you spend a few days reading posts on the Novels forum you'll see that. Plus, a lot of writers write in isolation, and don't share their story ideas with anyone until the book is released.

With me personally, I came up with a basic story first. I sat on the couch and let the story form inside my mind, beginning, middle, and end, then wrote it all down as a "this happens, then this happens, then this happens" kind of thing. Then, I came up with the main character, started writing, and the story just took off on its own. The finished story went a lot differently and better than my initial visualization.

I am sorrry I thought it was a new thread not related to PA

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There are a few other forums on AW besides those concerning PA. If you have a question about novel writing, you would post it in the Novels forum.

Different stories require different approaches. For my secret agent / thriller WIP I had the characters first, then started placing them into situations where they could show themselves to be accomplished in their particular fields. This opened up a story which has events that are (probably) in the right order. I'm re-writing most of the middle section again to take into account my research (which you need to do for anything), and research will also affect your story.

My western / horror / weird stuff WIP I started off with a couple of unrelated scenes and worked backwards to find out what the hell those scenes meant, how they related to each other, and how they opened up a larger world. The opposite of this method is the obsessive planning, which I've just started for a SF idea I'm using for NaNo. There are no surefire ways of starting a story, and you need to find what works for you.

I start with a blank page. I know that sounds obvious, but I do as little planning as possible, most of the things like setting, characters (even their names) comes out while I'm writing, I almost never know it to start with.

So, blank page. I stare at it for a while, and then because I'm supposed to be writing, I start typing a sentence, with no pre-set direction, and then I wait for whatever word I know if supposed to come next, and the next word after that, and with any luck I'll have something approximating a story by the end of the page. That's where the planning will kick in, when my brain will start to give the creative spark some direction.

Wanda, I haven't posted on one of your threads before, but I've been folllowing most of the time.

When you say this:

wanda45451964 said:

no one will see it or know about it until the Publisher has it and has set a release date on it.

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Are you saying that a publisher has offered you a contract on this unfinished book? Because there are many discussions on AW about publisher credentials.

And when you say this:

wanda45451964 said:

The one that I am working on now... no one will see it or know about it... I am having this one be a secret.

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There is much to be said for good beta readers. Mine are worth their weight in chocolate. Other writers, ones who know the mechanics of plotting and is familiar with your genre, have been the best thing ever to happen to my books. Once I've hit draft 2-3 on a WIP and have polished it to a decent shine, I sent it to betas. They show me what's working and--more importantly--what isn't. Then I collate their suggestions and decide what needs to be fixed. I return the favor, of course. Often I learn just as much about writing from betaing for others as I do from reading beta comments on my own books.

I usually start with the idea for a character and a plot. My planning and roughdrafting is all about finding out the other stuff that I need but didn't come with the initial idea. Town names usually aren't a part of that, but your mileage may vary

Wanda, is this going to be another collection of short stories?

I start with a germ of an idea. For instance, the idea for my current WIP was "ooh, I want a guy that can jump between alternate realities."

I then sit down and decide how the hell I'm supposed to turn 11 words into an 80k novel. This often involves panicking. Once I have a few plot ideas, I evolve the main character a little. Once that's done, I plan the first few scenes, then write a couple thousand words of it.

The rest of the plan is usually written as I go, so that I have a few scenes "in hand," but don't know the rest.

Details like places and other characters are often only loosely planned. I find they turn out better if I let them evolve as I write.

Hope this helps.

Adzmodeus said:

I then sit down and decide how the hell I'm supposed to turn 11 words into an 80k novel. This often involves panicking.

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So true!

Much panicking.

And later, much - "I can't believe I wrote this crap!"

Stijn Hommes said:

Town names usually aren't a part of that, but your mileage may vary

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I like having town/city names as part of my planning, but that's because I do a lot of worldbuilding. The two cities I've got in mind right now are called Toronto and Ruby.

underthecity said:

I tried to read the OP, but my eyes were crossing by the fifth line.

Wanda, please separate your thoughts into different paragraphs.

Please use proper punctuation. Your posts get so hard to read that I've started skipping most of them.

At the very least, please put a space after a period.

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Yes, I'm quoting myself.

It usually just starts with an idea, like what if? Or I come up with something as I go through my daily life. Then I sit and start writing, but that's after I have my central character. Usually the story determines my character so all I have is a name to start with. No real planning.I just do it. However, I have so many projects when I come up with a new idea, it simmers for a few weeks to a year or even ore before I get to it. The one I just finished was was swimming around in my head for eighteen months before I wrote it.

Plot: I'm still evolving how I do it. I start out by identifying what makes the story special. Some research to help develop the story. Then, this time, I'll be trying a new type of outline, which starts with a synopsis (beginning, middle, and end), then pulls out five or so major events, and builds scenes off it. Subplots I'm likely to ignore in the outline and the first draft, since they're such horrible sticking points. My main goal is the make sure I answer every why, which has been a problem for me.

Characters: With the exception of the primary main character, I generally toss the characters into the story when they're needed. Like in my last one, the Primary Main Character was going down into a tunnel. So who should go with him? A firefighter and a police officer. Looked around online for five minutes for some names, tossed them into the story, and they became secondary main characters. So no character bios or questionaires. I just keep all the information as I come up with it on an information sheet--usually it's not more than three lines per character. But then my characters are stable in the story and don't change, so I don't need to have a lot of detail.

wanda45451964 said:

then I stop it and print a few pages or email them to a friend to see what they think.

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I used to do this, and it's not a good practice. I'd give my short stories to a couple of people, and when they gave me comments, I made all my changes based on their comments. Or gave the story up. Problem was that one person read technical manuals for recreation and didn't read fiction, and the other didn't read much at all. The tech reader wouldn't have recognized good fiction from a tree stump, and I was relying on him to tell me that the story was good. One day I realized that my stories weren't what I intended--they were getting lost in everyone's comments (it's called writing by committee). I gave my critiquers way too much power over my writing, and I stopped showing them the stories that day--the next one they saw was published. It was very important to learn that I could trust myself that I would know if something was working right.

I doubt if there are any two authors in the world who plan and write their stories in the same way. Everyone has their own unique style, based on what works for them.

I agree with Linda that the wrong beta reader is worse than no beta reader at all, but I've found that I've learned an incredible amount from the various critiques groups and workshops I've participated in. The key is getting feedback from the right people. That can be readers who are big fans of your particular genre, or authors who are willing to mentor you, or agents and editors who send a personalised reply to your submission. The most useful feedback I got on a fantasy story -- because what I learned applied not only to that story but to everything I wrote subsequently, and got me over a major hurdle -- was from James MacDonald at Viable Paradise. The most useful feedback I got on an erotica story was from Cecilia Tan -- and it came with an acceptance letter and a cheque. The most useful feedback I got on a horror story was from a reader who'd never written anything in her life but whose comments made me see exactly where I'd gone wrong in the plot.

Learning the craft of writing is hard enough; trying to go it alone makes it even harder, IMO.