Rebecca Graf's Blog - Posts Tagged "descriptive-writing"
Development of My Writing
I used to think that a writer was just born with the ability and the words came out nearly perfect as they wrote. I think I viewed it this way because in school my teachers never really took the time to show me how to improve my creative writing. It was here's the A and let's move on.
I wrote my first stories. I did something not too smart. I showed them to someone I considered a friend. They began pointing out every problem they could find including character development. It was the first draft and just really pages of ideas. I thought I was not the born writer and stopped writing creatively for over a year.
Then I met a friend who writes and she pointed out that it is a process and has to develop. Even the bestselling authors of today write crappy first drafts and then edit like crazy to produce award winning material.
I sat down and wrote. It was a story I had dreamed and I couldn't get it off my mind. I just wrote. I didn't care of it made sense or was logical. I produced at 20,000 word first draft.
I went back and began editing it. Then I went back through and edited it again. The editor has it. I'll go through it again before we finalize it and get it published. It is now well over 80,000 words.
I'm finding that I have to write the bare bones of the story first. I don't care about describing the location or the character's facial expressions. I just need to get the action and plot out.
Next, I go back and expand on plot and begin describing. The next round is largely descriptive writing. When I'm ready to pass it on to an editor, it is nothing like the first draft. It is much bigger and deeper.
Add to the fact that I'm growing as a writer you can't judge my writing on the first drafts. If you did, I'd just have to quit.
But watching the story move from notes on a page to something close to publishing quality is amazing. It is so much fun to watch how it morphs from an idea into a reality. Writing is so cool!
The result of all this is July being the month I publish Deep Connections!
I wrote my first stories. I did something not too smart. I showed them to someone I considered a friend. They began pointing out every problem they could find including character development. It was the first draft and just really pages of ideas. I thought I was not the born writer and stopped writing creatively for over a year.
Then I met a friend who writes and she pointed out that it is a process and has to develop. Even the bestselling authors of today write crappy first drafts and then edit like crazy to produce award winning material.
I sat down and wrote. It was a story I had dreamed and I couldn't get it off my mind. I just wrote. I didn't care of it made sense or was logical. I produced at 20,000 word first draft.
I went back and began editing it. Then I went back through and edited it again. The editor has it. I'll go through it again before we finalize it and get it published. It is now well over 80,000 words.
I'm finding that I have to write the bare bones of the story first. I don't care about describing the location or the character's facial expressions. I just need to get the action and plot out.
Next, I go back and expand on plot and begin describing. The next round is largely descriptive writing. When I'm ready to pass it on to an editor, it is nothing like the first draft. It is much bigger and deeper.
Add to the fact that I'm growing as a writer you can't judge my writing on the first drafts. If you did, I'd just have to quit.
But watching the story move from notes on a page to something close to publishing quality is amazing. It is so much fun to watch how it morphs from an idea into a reality. Writing is so cool!
The result of all this is July being the month I publish Deep Connections!
