Writing Process – The First Draft
Writing the first draft of a novel has the unique challenge of the author staring at a blank page. There is just no getting around it, it’s extremely intimidating and turns away a lot of good writers before they even get started.
I find having an outline with a sentence or two for each chapter is invaluable for getting over the terror that is a blank page. Having just that little starting point puts my analytical mind at ease and allows the creative side to come out of hiding. Once I get going I try to make sure I’ll have at least an hour or two of uninterrupted time (10:00 to midnight for me usually) so I can stay in that flow until before I know it an entire chapter appears from my fingertips.
If you have writers block a good way to get over it is to read the preceding chapter you just wrote the night/week before. Clean up the wording, rewrite some clunky sections. Pretty soon you get to the end and move right on into the new chapter like the blank void wasn’t even there.
I actually find writing the first draft very liberating. I don’t have to get the description or dialogue just right, I simply need to get it down and move on to get it all out as quick as possible before the ideas slip away from my mind. If a particular idea or story line doesn’t work right I can just blow it up or change it all around without concern in subsequent drafts. I would rather have the idea there and delete it later than not at all.
My books usually consist of three or four separate story lines to them. I take each plot line one at a time in its entirety rather than trying to write them all jumbled up as they will eventually appear in the book. Along the way I make notations of tie-ins with the other stories, but I like to keep my head in one story and set of characters at a time if at all possible.
Also, many times you will reach a point in your story where you need to make a change to something you wrote several chapters earlier to foreshadow the event, remove an inconsistency or whatever. Just go back, make a note inside these [] brackets and then go back to the chapter you are currently working on. Don’t take yourself out of the moment. For the second draft all you need to do is perform a text search for an [ and it will take you right to the spot for you to make the change.
Next up: The Second Draft
I find having an outline with a sentence or two for each chapter is invaluable for getting over the terror that is a blank page. Having just that little starting point puts my analytical mind at ease and allows the creative side to come out of hiding. Once I get going I try to make sure I’ll have at least an hour or two of uninterrupted time (10:00 to midnight for me usually) so I can stay in that flow until before I know it an entire chapter appears from my fingertips.
If you have writers block a good way to get over it is to read the preceding chapter you just wrote the night/week before. Clean up the wording, rewrite some clunky sections. Pretty soon you get to the end and move right on into the new chapter like the blank void wasn’t even there.
I actually find writing the first draft very liberating. I don’t have to get the description or dialogue just right, I simply need to get it down and move on to get it all out as quick as possible before the ideas slip away from my mind. If a particular idea or story line doesn’t work right I can just blow it up or change it all around without concern in subsequent drafts. I would rather have the idea there and delete it later than not at all.
My books usually consist of three or four separate story lines to them. I take each plot line one at a time in its entirety rather than trying to write them all jumbled up as they will eventually appear in the book. Along the way I make notations of tie-ins with the other stories, but I like to keep my head in one story and set of characters at a time if at all possible.
Also, many times you will reach a point in your story where you need to make a change to something you wrote several chapters earlier to foreshadow the event, remove an inconsistency or whatever. Just go back, make a note inside these [] brackets and then go back to the chapter you are currently working on. Don’t take yourself out of the moment. For the second draft all you need to do is perform a text search for an [ and it will take you right to the spot for you to make the change.
Next up: The Second Draft
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