From draft to draft

I work on my first draft on the computer and enhance from beginning to end page by page.I do not rewrite all over again from the beginning- just what I do

Assuming the novel cooperates, my first draft is my only draft. I may cut or rewrite a few scenes, but nothing major. With my second novel I deleted or changed a grand total of 6,500 words out of 125,000. Even with my first novel, which is certainly not cooperative, I kept about 70% of my first draft. I copied all the scenes I wanted into a new document with notes in between for what needs added.

I hate rewriting, which is one of the reasons I outline diligently before I start writing. I'm far from 'in the dark' when I write my first draft. I also write a very clean first draft. No notes saying 'insert description' or 'look up coal mine fires'. If there's supposed to be a description here, then I write it, whether I feel like it or not. I do research before I write, and have internet access in case I forget/overlook something, so the only reason for not doing it would be laziness (and writing is the only thing I'm not lazy about). If I deviate from the outline in a way which requires already written scenes to be changed, then I go change them immediately, so I'm not left with a thousand small discrepancies to fix when I finish. If I try to 'enhance' a scene with editing, I will always end up destroying it, so I leave my first drafts alone except for typos and the like. (I will occasionally change a word as I edit because it was overused or I thought of a better one off the top of my head, but this really doesn't happen that often). Something about how I write or edit makes over editing something I have to be very careful about.

That's just how I work, though. Lots of excellent writers have totally different ways of working, which clearly work for them.

What Hope to the Horizon does is something you can only do if you plan out every single detail in advance and that might not work for you.

I just write the story as it comes to mind and rewrite to put some padding in logical places and cut wordiness elsewhere in the manuscript. I keep every single version of the story I write.

I'm a big outliner also (now, I wasn't in the past). So my second and third drafts are basically clean ups of my earlier drafts. I'd say 90% of my first draft material is in the final.

When I was writing one book at a time I wouldn't outline, but now if I don't outline I get way confused and frustrated and end up playing tetris.

I first manuscript I've editing 4 or 5 times and cut 60 pages. This was largely because if was my first attempt and I started it 8 years ago. My style has changed somewhat in that time.

Now a days my newer stuff really only a few drafts. First focusing on details that will enhance or tighten the plot. Second going over the spelling and grammar. Then I'll give it to my readers and I'll go from there.

I used to never outline but instead wing it but now-a-days having edited two manuscripts for years because I "winged it" I'm more likely to have an outline to get the first draft tighter the first time.

i don't outline, but i take lots of notes and skip around. if i don't know my ending 20K words into it, something's seriously wrong with the story.

i write slowly, so my rough drafts are pretty decent, or so i'm told. in all reality, i would say that people like my rough drafts better than the edited version. but, once the rough draft is done, i spend at least as much time editing as it took to write. i also do some minour editing and revisions in the rough draft if i get bored writing and want to change pace for awhile.

so, i do some editing/fixing in the rough draft as i go, then edit like crazy. after that, a look to see if there's anything i missed and i'm done. i know from experience that my natural ending place clocks in at roughly 400 pages, and i'm perfectly fine with that.

I get a general idea of the story and start writing. The outline comes as I start to figure out more and more details. Other people like more structure, but I need the freedom to figure things out as I go. My writing tends to take me where it wants through the first draft. It's not until I'm done that I "discover" what I've got, and start editing out the kinks and the false starts and the things that turn out to be useless. But I need the time to explore through the first draft to figure out what those are. If there's a scene I've missed then I'll add it. If this scene no longer fits, then I delete it. If that scene is now in a completely different tone, then I'll rewrite it. That's the big stuff I remember afterwards, but I think most work is just touch up, editing work.

I MUCH prefer writing the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th etc. drafts to writing the 1st. I supposed you could even call my 1st drafts very detailed outlines.

My 1st drafts are typically quite short and misdirected--usually somewhere from 20-30K.

In the 2nd draft, I expand expand expand on the important parts, add a lot of scenes, and usually add a character or two to move things more smoothly. 3rd draft is the same thing, but less. On and on and on until it's done.

Because I hate writing the 1st draft, I get through it as quickly as possible before the self-doubt can kick in. I aim to have it finished in sometime between a week and a week and a half. Then each draft takes about a week.

Usually, I can start querying a month after I write the first word.

My style is exactly like 'Hope to the Horizon''s. I'll write tons of pages worth of information on the characters, relationships, plot, etc., and then outline every single chapter. As I think of ideas or even dialogue I'll insert it into the outline. Finally I'll sit down and write with all of these documents, and the story usually flows right out. I think it's certainly the most effective method, and the most sure way of completing a novel without having to worry about seeing tons of problems on your first read of the rough draft.

I've also been able to write novels rather quickly using this method. Keep in mind that the pre-writing work takes quite a while, but the actual writing can take just 2-3 months for a complete novel. And of course like many other writers I just despise editing, haha.

I outline in a notebook. I write tons of little notes that I fold up and tuck into my back pocket. I write character sketches then connect them to each other to better understand how one affects the other. Then I write an exploratory first draft. Then I edit the hell out of it.

This may sound exhausting but it works for me. I feel better about my story, like I'm into every character and the setting. As I edit, I find that chunks of dialogue and narrative take on a richer tone because I'm in tune. Maybe as I progress I'll get more comfortable with the process, as well as more creative at the on set, but until then this is my method.

Pike

When writing a book, the first thing I do is write down the idea that geeked me enough to think about taking on the project, make copies and tape it everywhere I'm likely to write (monitor, front of notebooks, etc). That way, when I'm deep in frustration and wondering why I'm struggling with this POS, my eye catches it and I can get all excited about the book again. And if I can't, that's a big hint about whether or not I should be writing it right now.

Then I get my world, characters, major conflicts firm in my mind. Usually I have a few snippets of dialogue or a scene bit or something that I'm really looking forward to writing down. Then I start writing. No outline (been there, done that, burned the t-shirt), nothing else, just an inciting event that changes the hero's world forever and start following the conflicts through the novel.

I'm also a slow writer because while I create fairly quickly, I go over every scene immediately (sometime before I finish writing it) and layer in all the things that don't come in the first heat of writing: extra description, emotional, subcontext, subplots, etc. When I'm finished with a scene, or a chapter, it's pretty much done except for line edits. As I'm writing, if I realize that something major has to be added back a few chapters, I do that immediately and rework the book through the ripple effect that change makes before I continue writing new stuff.

I've discovered, in all my years of doing this writing stuff, if I don't do all the work in the first flush of writing, I will never do it. Ever. My fun is in the creation of words (1st draft), not in the manipulation of words (any other draft), and if a novel is too flawed after I've finished the first draft, then I would rather scrap the whole thing and create an entirely new draft from the same idea than edit and rework the old one. I have over 10 drafts of the same novel concept as testament to this preference, as well as 7 books that are so badly flawed that I won't rewrite them (but now don't care about them to write another draft), so I just won't let the first draft get that bad again.

My second draft read-through/edit is to make sure that it tells the story I'd intended to tell and that each scene does its job within the scope of the story. Individual scenes might get rewritten, characters get tweaked and story arcs punched up, but there generally isn't much rewriting to do.

If I'm sending it out to beta readers, this is what they'll get, but that is an if. I don't always.

Final draft is to read the entire book aloud, preferrably to someone else but a recorder will do. If reading to someone else, we both have pens to note down what clunks, dialogue that doesn't flow right, etc. If recording it, I save the pen to the play back (yes, it is possible to get over hating the sound of your own recorded voice) and listen for the same clunks and problems and note them down. Then I correct all the errors, grammar books at my side.

Then I print up a clean copy and send it out. Done. Take a month or so off to refill the creative well and get excited about the next idea and repeat the process.

Good luck in finding a process that works for you.

Now I have a Neo I write on that.

My first draft? I aim for roughly 50k words. No correcting, editing, reading back, nothing. I start with a few characters, an initiating incident, and a rough idea of where I want to be by the time I reach the end.

Second drafts are for editing, but the first is all about speed for me. I have to get the story out as quickly as possible or it becomes stale, and I start to wonder if it's working. So I spew it out, then work on tweaking it.

Since I've only completed one novel, I can't say for certain how I would do it again, but my first draft was 30,000 words, and the finished story is 70,000.

I guess the first draft amounted to a big outline. Most additions in following versions were line by line, but I did add four complete chapters that radically changed the ending. It was done after comments by beta readers, and I think they were right to suggest the changes.

The first 15,000 words of my WIP seem to be better organized, so I doubt it will take as many drafts to get where I want to go.

I outline and compose character analyses ahead of time, and I still feel like my first drafts are horrible. By the time, I limp to the end, I'm convinced that I've composed a stinking heap of festering word garbage. I set it aside for a while.

Usually, when I go back and reread it then, it's not as bad as I thought. And I absolutely love revising. For me, that's where real writing happens. When I draft, it all feels linear, like I'm staggering from one scene to the next. But when I revise, I can get the whole novel in my head at once and see it as a structure. That helps me enormously in seeing where I've let the tension drop or where I've lapsed into a chapter of exposition that could be better given in an action scene.

Unlike when I'm drafting, when I'm into revision, I quickly get to a point where I know exactly where pretty much everything in the novel is. I can be doing something in chapter 12 and realize I could set up better in chapter 3 and know where to go back and do that.

The blank page or screen sends me gibbering. Revision is a joy.