Zero Drafting

[TMarsh]

Has anyone tried Zero Drafting as a way to get over writers' block? I've been having a lot of trouble actually staying motivated and finishing a project, so I started Zero Drafting a few days ago and I feel like this system might work for me! It's basically a long outline of the book; I put in a lot of dialogue and actions, but not a lot of detail.

Just curious to hear about other people's experiences with Zero Drafting?

 

[ChaseJxyz]

Never heard of it but looked it up. That sounds a LOT like what I do for fanfiction, which tends to be on the shorter side (2-3k). I'll write a few hundred words in a note on my phone. This works really well when I have a ton of ideas but not the time to execute on them, as it'll keep me from forgetting whatever nuggets get me really excited.

I don't think this would work for me for a whole novel. But sometimes when I'm doing the first draft I'll be stuck on something and I'll "zero draft" a paragraph or two, but it's incredibly mechanical in nature (They had an argument about X and he got mad and then left).

It's a neat concept and I'm glad it works well for you!

 

[katfeete]

I more or less do this, though I started doing it before I knew there was a name for it. (I also write out of order, for the record, and I handwrite the zero draft stage; I find it helps shut my inner editor up, which is worth some deciphering-of-handwriting later on.)

For my comic's scripts, I usually just start brainstorming -- this is what I want the scene to look like and do, maybe so-and-so says this, oh and then so-and-so would say that -- basically it meanders between brainstorming and straight dialogue. Eventually I get the scene mostly down and start transcribing it into actual scripts, cleaning everything up as I go. Short stories -- the few I've done -- I've written similarly, and with modest success.

Novel-wise, this same method got me through two NaNoWriMo wins, but the novel itself (the same one for both) didn't turn out so well in the end. The biggest benefit of zero drafting is it lets me meander, poking and prodding at characters and events and finding out which are dry bones on the page and which tasty meat -- something more traditional outlining methods always failed me at, often drastically. And the biggest problem with zero drafting is... it lets me meander. It encourages my tendency to throw in the kitchen sink, diving deeply into subplots and sub-subplots and "but what if [secondary character who doesn't need their own arc] did [thing that will eat up ten thousand words]" until I've obscured the shape of the story. My assumption that I'd be able to find it with vigorous pruning has not, alas, held up under revisions.

(Spending over a decade writing a soap opera webcomic where meandering and the kitchen sink were, if anything, welcomed by the readership hasn't helped....)

However, while flawed, the zero draft method has still gotten me much closer to telling the actual stories that are in my head than anything else. I'm currently experimenting with expanding my latest short story, accordion-style, to see if working a zero draft in stages and layers helps. I'll let you know in a year or two how it went.

 

[Aiwendil]

I've never heard this term before, but I sometimes do something like it. I write a lot of notes and outlines while in the process of drafting, and sometimes I find these getting fuller and more detailed, to the point where I'm writing maybe 60% or 70% of the word count of the full draft, but just in a quick, usually present tense, note-like style.

When I do it, I find it rather easy, and it seems to also then make the real drafting process itself much easier as well. However, it may be that there's a sample bias at work here, since I only do it when the pre-drafting seems to "come naturally", as it were. I'm not sure how effective it would be if I tried to do it for sections where that kind of pre-drafting doesn't just sort of naturally flow out of the outlining and notes.

 

[Justin.]

Sorry I have been trying to read all morning and I'm about at my limit. Here is what I do and I wonder if it is zero drafting. It allows me to easily change idea points and write to those, while making the story fill in its own story through bullet style plot points. It fends off writers block as it engages the subconscious and just seems like fun to me.

Start
End


Start
Main Plot idea chronologically
Main Plot idea chronologically
Main Plot idea chronologically
END


Start
Main Plot idea chronologically
Smaller plot idea
Smaller Plot idea
Smaller plot idea
Main Plot idea chronologically
Smaller plot idea
Smaller Plot idea
Smaller plot idea
Main Plot idea chronologically
Smaller plot idea
Smaller Plot idea
Smaller plot idea
END


Start
Main Plot idea chronologically
Smaller plot idea
Details
Smaller plot idea
Details
Smaller plot idea
Details
Main Plot idea chronologically
Smaller plot idea
Details
Smaller plot idea
Details
Smaller plot idea
Details
Main Plot idea chronologically
Smaller plot idea
Details
Smaller plot idea
Details
Smaller plot idea
Details
END

 

[Saoirse]

Ooh this sounds interesting. I might give it a try. I've never done it - I've always just dived into my drafts, although when I started 20-some-odd years ago I did "exploratory drafts" where I just wrote and discovered the story as I did, sometimes throwing everything I felt like and then cutting and pruning and "making things fit" later once I knew what the story actually was. But that was in manuscript/story format. So maybe similar, I guess? But not the same, exactly.

 

[SusanStar]

Lately, this has been my method to quell my brain's need to follow every fun story idea that pops into my head. I didn't do it for my current wip since I was already too far in to find it necessary, but I've done a zero draft for my future projects for when the time is right to properly start their first drafts. By telling myself the story in full, or as full as I've thought them out, I feel like I've told the story to myself well enough to pull the reigns back on my creative juices.

I write them like a Wikipedia synopsis/plot section, describing the whole of the story from beginning to end with the big ideas to be broken down later in outline form. If I don't know the finer details (places explored during the characters' journey or projects the MC does as the kingdom's court mage) I'll block them off [like this] to be filled in later. It keeps the writing and ideas flowing while making the process as stress-free as possible.