Drafts

It depends on how you write! It's conflict rather than content that matters. Either you discover it as you write the draft, set it up at the start, or plan the whole thing.

I'm not if you can start the second draft until the first draft is finished.

It's an interesting question.

To me each draft would be a complete run through of the book, but I could be wrong. I would though if each draft wasn't of a completed book then books would constantly be in the first draft. At least the way I write because I am always editting as I go.

So I guess it depends on how you write and how you define complete draft.

I agree with johnzakour.

To me each draft would be a complete run through of the book

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I used to rewrite/edit a lot as I went. It worked great with short stories, but it gets me totally lost in novels - changing a lot of things back and forth makes for too many details - CHANGING details - to keep in my mind at once. I still edit as I go with novels, but not actually touch the rewriting until I'm done. For a simple reason, really - I only have the whole picture necessary to do a good rewrite once I have a completed first draft on my hands.

As john said, it's not a SECOND draft until the FIRST draft says "The End."

Otherwise you're basically just tweeking an UNCOMPLETED FIRST draft.

During the first draft, the only thing you should be doing is the first draft.

But what confuses me is, are you past the first draft and just doing multiple other drafts? I wasn't sure, from your message.

If so, I suppose you could work on the second and third drafts simultaneously, but it seems a bit pointless really. A lot pointless, really.

Listen to John Zakour and Ferret. They're smart.

With my current project, I wound up in a position similar to what's described in the OP (I am impressively disorganized at times and I can never figure out how to outline), and I did some pretty weird things to combat it.

I didn't actually start a second draft before I'd finished the first, but I started writing lists and alternate scenes and short synopses of the altered plotlines. Basically, anything that seemed like it would help me organize the new ideas that were coming up, and help me figure out what was actually still going to be appropriate to the plot as it evolved.

My suggestion would be, if you're using a word processing program, make yourself a folder where you can stockpile your ideas as short, focused documents--don't get carried away, but this may help the confusion if you can give yourself a place to work things out and be ridiculous and write down your own thought process. (Of course, I also conduct interviews with my characters, prying into their personal lives and demanding that they explain themselves.)

As regards the actual WIP, what I did was, I wrote forward with the draft as though my new ideas had been there all the time, but I didn't actually go back to the beginning and add them in--that's what all the lists and alternate scenes were for. On the second draft, is where I started adding the new stuff right at the start.

This is obviously just my personal experience, and I would certainly not endorse it for anyone who has already figured out how to write a novel from beginning to end and have the whole thing behave itself

Shadow_Ferret said:

As john said, it's not a SECOND draft until the FIRST draft says "The End."

Otherwise you're basically just tweeking an UNCOMPLETED FIRST draft.

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Yeah, what they said.

weatherfield said:

I didn't actually start a second draft before I'd finished the first, but I started writing lists and alternate scenes and short synopses of the altered plotlines. Basically, anything that seemed like it would help me organize the new ideas that were coming up, and help me figure out what was actually still going to be appropriate to the plot as it evolved.

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This is what I did as well. My first draft is finished now, but it's really a skeleton plot. So as I was finishing it, I found myself keeping notes on what I wanted to add/change/develop/etc., and now I'm working on that part of it.

I did two drafts, then the third was the final "first" draft.

I have a very linear approach that may or may not work for you.

After the initial brainstorming I wrote up a narrative outline divided by chapters and further broken down by the scenes in the chapters. It was really just a way to organize my notes and structure the novel. I made sure I introduced plot devices, characters etc... where they needed to go. It became the bible I went back to when I wrote the manuscript.

Then I just wrote the first draft from chapter one and keep going until it was done. I didnt go back to earlier chapters and I avoided skipping around. I made notes on the outline when I wanted to make changes to the parts I had already written or about scenes that I would be writing later on. I didnt revise or skip around on the manuscript itself though. I just keep writing.

The second draft had a lot of re-writing but from the outline I always had the big picture in mind for the whole book. It helped me from getting bogged down in specific scenes or chapters. I did some skipping around but pretty much started with chapter 1 and chugged through to the end again.

Third draft was to make sure the pacing was consistent and in the end it resulted in something that I was actually willing to show a few folks and get feedback on. It was the real book that needed to be tweaked and tuned.

I am in the fourth draft now where I am fixing all the technical issues like making sure characters speech patterns and descriptions are consistent and filling in bracked items where I still need to research the info like a [species] bird or [type] hat. That kind of stuff.

Its been about 6 monhts now since I started the outline and I am pretty happy with what I have [20 chapters, ~300 pages].

I dont know if any of my rambling was helpful but its how I have been getting through it anyway.

I absolutely demand that the first draft be finished, even if it doesn't work and absolutely needs major changes. I can fix phrasing or details as I go, but I don't allow myself any plot changes until the next draft. I have to suffer through a bad first draft to see whre the story is going. That's the only way I can honestly tell what needs to change.

I have to finish the first draft before I can do the second unless I have an problem so big that I cannot force myself to keep typing. Then have to change it and then continue. But the problem has to be monstrous to be the case.

It's not a draft til it's finished. That's my opinion anyway. Any revision before that is just minor edits going no further back than the previous chapter. You need to finish it to get to second draft status.

The danger in starting a second draft before you finish the first draft is that you'll be tempted to keep editing the parts already written. Get the story down on paper and then mess about with it.

giaaddison said:

so many helpful people
the problem i had was that the plot chnaged so much in the first draft, and i went back and changed bits and skipped around in the plot. Now, I'm writing from Chapter One to the end. Although I haven't split anything up into chapters yet. And i'm keeping a note of how many words i write per day, to motivate me.

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Sounds like truly a first draft to me.

Still it doesn't really matter how many drafts you have or when you switch from a first draft to the second and to the third and so on.

What does matter is getting the best finished product possible.

I used to be one of those who would start a second draft before finishing the first one. My reasoning was, Well, this doesn't seem to be working out, so I'm going to start again. And again. And again. Come to think of it, until I changed my tactics, I never did finish a draft.
These days, though, there is no second draft until I finish the first one.

Until I started writing though the whole draft I had so many partial drafts of different manuscripts the folders for those projects were looking like little yellow headstones on my desktop.

For me one of the fun things about writing the draft from beginning to end is I engage the manuscript like a reader. I even find myself looking forward to later chapters where particular events are comming up. I may be wierd but it adds another level of enjoyment to the process for me.

The big thing though is doing whatever works best for you to get that first draft completed.

Um. I'm confused. Is it complete at 8000 words? Or is it completed at 8000 words above what you intended?

Because 8000 words isn't a novel, it's a nice sized short story.

Shady Lane said:

I absolutely demand that the first draft be finished, even if it doesn't work and absolutely needs major changes. I can fix phrasing or details as I go, but I don't allow myself any plot changes until the next draft. I have to suffer through a bad first draft to see whre the story is going. That's the only way I can honestly tell what needs to change.

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Ditto. I have to finish the first draft before I think about what needs changing.