Submitting Drafts Too Soon?

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Submitting Drafts Too Soon?

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“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” Terry Pratchett (Freedom With Writing). Image Source: Pinterest

Project Paradise Word Count: 357 (+244)

Project Skye Word Count: 1084
Project Independence Word Count: 1723
Project Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel Page Count: 12

I came within 6 words of my Daily 250 word count, so I feel like this was a successful writing day. I would have liked to have gotten to 250 words, but the place where I stopped seemed like a natural “break” in the flow of the story.

Am I Submitting Drafts too Soon?

So, working on Project Skye has been an eye-opening experience. I’ve discovered some interesting things about my drafting process as a fiction writer. One of the things I’ve discovered is that I need to “Tell, Don’t Show” first. I need to tell myself the story first before I try to show it to the audience. The second thing is that I may be submitting drafts one or maybe even two/three versions too early, and this may have to do with the terminology that I use when describing where I am in the writing process.

“Working” Draft

So, after I outline and write a Rough Draft (sometimes these are separate, sometimes not–although, lately, I’ve taken to outlining using the “Story Map” handout that I’ve mentioned before in a previous blog post, and then write the Rough Draft in the Notes App on my phone) which looks a lot like a “Treatment” for a Hollywood script. I let that sit for a week or more and then start on the next draft, the “Working” Draft.

To me, “Working” implies that it is a “Work-in-Progress” Draft of the story. It is, as close as I can make it, the story that I see in my mind. After the “Working” draft is finished, I compare it to the outline and the vision that I have in my head. If I’m satisfied with it, I’ll edit it and begin submitting. If I’m not, it will go through another “pass” to see if I can improve on it.

“Intermediate” Draft

This process did not work with Project Skye. What I’ve done is created “Intermediate” drafts along the way with each successive draft getting closer and closer to the story/vision in my head. Unlike, 99% of my stories so far, I’m only on the first major scene, and already I think I’m going to need at least one more major pass at it to get it right. I’m doing a lot of world-building and characterization in this draft, but other techniques like building excitement by starting the story In Media Res (“in the middle of things”) and cutting of extraneous details that I need, but that the audience doesn’t won’t be addressed in this draft (although I have ideas on how I might accomplish these things in the next draft).

However, normally when I finished the draft that I’m on right now for Project Skye, it would go out to various markets, so I’m wondering, if I haven’t been simply submitting my stories too early in the process by not thinking of these drafts as “intermediary” steps to getting to a more “dramatic” story that does what all good writing should do: “show, don’t tell.”

Food for thought for me on this Wednesday afternoon. Happy writing and reading!

Sidney