I've read and enjoyed your posts on drafting and plotting. But I'd like to know how you keep the excitement going, and the characters and story fresh for you through the challenge of multiple drafts. Is there ever some point in the process where you just get tired of everything in your current WIP, and if so, how do you get past it?
I'm curious what you are working with on this pass. Still tweaking the plot and filling in holes, I assume. Completing some research. I also use the [some kind of Parliament bill] method. As well as the [and they have hot sex] method. How much do you work with the writing in the second draft? Isn't it painful to read the ugly duckling draft? I've written @30k of my first draft and have to keep myself from cringing over the simplified language and flat writing. I am still plowing ahead and hoping I'll be able to fix it later. Thanks so much for sharing your person experience. It is very helpful.
how you keep the excitement going, and the characters and story fresh for you through the challenge of multiple drafts.
I thought about this a bit.
When I move forward in the writing ... I'm advancing on several fronts at once. I can switch back and forth.
When I get too tired to work on the story, I zip off and do research on woman's dress in 1794 or whether eating whole oats makes you sick and what French prisons were like.
So that's the first thing. The writing is like a well-equiped gym. You rest by going off and using different muscles.
I'm not working more than four or five hours a day -- at most -- on the story. No so much time to get tired.
And I'm only working on one little square inch of story at any time.
Some writing coach or other talks about this ... how you don't have to write the whole story. (Which would be fairly overwhelming. I get tired and worn out thinking about it.) You only have to write this one little square inch that's in front of you.
So right now I don't have to worry about why Maggie first kisses Doyle, or what they say when they go upstairs in British Service Headquarters in Paris and mate like minks.
I just have to worry about the very first face-to-face meeting. The square inch I'm writing now.
Is there ever some point in the process where you just get tired of everything in your current WIP, and if so, how do you get past it?
For me, this comes in the last part of the First Polishing Draft when the story is done and written except for some basic mistake I've just discovered and I'm trying desperately to make all the complicated plotting NOT fall apart and my characters all seem to be constructed of the finest wood and I am just tired and disgusted with the whole thing.
...I'm curious what you are working with on this pass. Still tweaking the plot and filling in holes, I assume. ...
Right now ... moving into the Second Rough Draft ... I'm working with VERY rough language.
Four pages of maundering, unspelled, unpunctuated, repetitive near-nonsense in the First Rough Draft gets turned into a couple paragraphs of fairly crisp, clean language in the Second Rough Draft.
Some of the preliminary language is salvaged. Most is not.
First Rough Draft lays out the major plotting. The character interaction is very superficial, though. Very.
Second Rough Draft should have all the plot problems worked out. That's the ideal.
The characterization is clearer ... but in the SRD it's far from good.
I keep working on characterization till the I send the submission draft off. Every draft is a characterization draft. And I'm never satisfied with waht I've done.
I'm only just now beginning to see Maggie's motivation. Just begining.
I also use the [some kind of Parliament bill] method. As well as the [and they have hot sex] method.
*grin*
How much do you work with the writing in the second draft?
Between FRD and SRD I just turn the whole manuscript inside out. That's because the First Rough Draft is so ... rough.
The First Rough Draft ain't nothing to write home about.
You know how you wake up in the middle of the night and jot down those nearly-undecipherable notes?
The FRD is only one level above that.
Isn't it painful to read the ugly duckling draft?
As it happens, this business of reading the rough draft doesn't particularly bother me.
For one thing ... I don't expect much of the FRD.
It's early and tentative.
And I (can I say this ...? I feel immodest.) I find find stuff in the draft that I really like.
That's always nice.
I've written @30k of my first draft and have to keep myself from cringing over the simplified language and flat writing. I am still plowing ahead and hoping I'll be able to fix it later.
This is so wonderful. By all means, forge ahead without becoming pessimistict. Don't let your inner editor silence your voice.
My own rough drafts are perfectly dreadful. (We will not encourage discussion of whether they get better.)
Congrats. You are at the point I love the most in writing. Keep at it. (G)
ReplyDeleteI used to be Witch of Atlas in your list on side. I've changed addresses.
My writer blog is Beauverre.
I've read and enjoyed your posts on drafting and plotting. But I'd like to know how you keep the excitement going, and the characters and story fresh for you through the challenge of multiple drafts. Is there ever some point in the process where you just get tired of everything in your current WIP, and if so, how do you get past it?
ReplyDeleteThanks.
I'm curious what you are working with on this pass. Still tweaking the plot and filling in holes, I assume. Completing some research. I also use the [some kind of Parliament bill] method. As well as the [and they have hot sex] method. How much do you work with the writing in the second draft? Isn't it painful to read the ugly duckling draft? I've written @30k of my first draft and have to keep myself from cringing over the simplified language and flat writing. I am still plowing ahead and hoping I'll be able to fix it later.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing your person experience. It is very helpful.
Hi m.o. --
ReplyDeleteI will try to update the link.
I should get the website up and running soon, and the lists will move off the blog and onto the website.
I like this moment in the drafting. Consolidation, I guess you'd call it.
Hi Stephanie --
ReplyDeletehow you keep the excitement going, and the characters and story fresh for you through the challenge of multiple drafts.
I thought about this a bit.
When I move forward in the writing ... I'm advancing on several fronts at once. I can switch back and forth.
When I get too tired to work on the story, I zip off and do research on woman's dress in 1794 or whether eating whole oats makes you sick and what French prisons were like.
So that's the first thing. The writing is like a well-equiped gym. You rest by going off and using different muscles.
I'm not working more than four or five hours a day -- at most -- on the story. No so much time to get tired.
And I'm only working on one little square inch of story at any time.
Some writing coach or other talks about this ... how you don't have to write the whole story.
(Which would be fairly overwhelming. I get tired and worn out thinking about it.)
You only have to write this one little square inch that's in front of you.
So right now I don't have to worry about why Maggie first kisses Doyle, or what they say when they go upstairs in British Service Headquarters in Paris and mate like minks.
I just have to worry about the very first face-to-face meeting. The square inch I'm writing now.
Is there ever some point in the process where you just get tired of everything in your current WIP, and if so, how do you get past it?
For me, this comes in the last part of the First Polishing Draft when the story is done and written except for some basic mistake I've just discovered and I'm trying desperately to make all the complicated plotting NOT fall apart and my characters all seem to be constructed of the finest wood and I am just tired and disgusted with the whole thing.
Chocolate helps.
Hi LL --
ReplyDelete...I'm curious what you are working with on this pass. Still tweaking the plot and filling in holes, I assume. ...
Right now ... moving into the Second Rough Draft ... I'm working with VERY rough language.
Four pages of maundering, unspelled, unpunctuated, repetitive near-nonsense
in the First Rough Draft
gets turned into a couple paragraphs of fairly crisp, clean language in the Second Rough Draft.
Some of the preliminary language is salvaged. Most is not.
First Rough Draft lays out the major plotting. The character interaction is very superficial, though. Very.
Second Rough Draft should have all the plot problems worked out.
That's the ideal.
The characterization is clearer ... but in the SRD it's far from good.
I keep working on characterization till the I send the submission draft off. Every draft is a characterization draft. And I'm never satisfied with waht I've done.
I'm only just now beginning to see Maggie's motivation. Just begining.
I also use the [some kind of Parliament bill] method. As well as the [and they have hot sex] method.
*grin*
How much do you work with the writing in the second draft?
Between FRD and SRD I just turn the whole manuscript inside out.
That's because the First Rough Draft is so ... rough.
The First Rough Draft ain't nothing to write home about.
You know how you wake up in the middle of the night and jot down those nearly-undecipherable notes?
The FRD is only one level above that.
Isn't it painful to read the ugly duckling draft?
As it happens, this business of reading the rough draft doesn't particularly bother me.
For one thing ... I don't expect much of the FRD.
It's early and tentative.
And I
(can I say this ...? I feel immodest.)
I find find stuff in the draft that I really like.
That's always nice.
I've written @30k of my first draft and have to keep myself from cringing over the simplified language and flat writing. I am still plowing ahead and hoping I'll be able to fix it later.
This is so wonderful.
By all means, forge ahead without becoming pessimistict. Don't let your inner editor silence your voice.
My own rough drafts are perfectly dreadful.
(We will not encourage discussion of whether they get better.)