Writing has Layers

I write dialog first. Almost all my first drafts read like scripts, with talking heads. I don’t have description. I don’t have dialog tags. There is no movement in a spatial arena. Worldbuilding is often pretty sparse and contradictory. Action scenes are almost non-existent. I HEAR my stories rather than seeing them, and this is the result.

But every author writes a first draft differently. And that’s OK. I suspect that every book is different to some degree, as well, but I don’t know that I will ever do a book that isn’t talking heads in the first draft, even if it moves away from dialog heavy after that.

Don’t be afraid of writing your first draft the way that you write it. If you write slowly, revising what you wrote the day before, then moving on. That’s OK. If you take months (or years) to consciously or subconsciously plan out a book and then write it down in one big chunk over a weekend, that’s OK. You’re not a hack because you use your own particular method of drafting. If you write all description first, or spend years working out the magic system—it’s all good.

But I thought it might help to make a list of the layers that most writers will eventually add to a first draft, to think about while working on revision.

Layers of your book may include:

1. Dialog

2. Description

3. Action

4. Backstory

5. Emotion

6. Voice

7. Theme

8. Relationships

9. Timescale

10. Pacing

11. Pretty/Quotable Words

12. Hook

13. First Chapter

14. Last Chapter

15. Climax

16. Surprises

17. Tension

18. Conflict

Each genre will probably have it own requirements. Mystery needs red herrings, clues, etc. Romance needs building romantic suspense. Horror needs a feeling of dread. Science fiction needs sensawonder. Fantasy needs setting that is personified. But anyway, this is a start.

Good luck on your first draft as NaNoWriMo is beginning, and remember to give yourself permission to be messy and bad, and to do it the way that works for you uniquely, and not necessarily for anyone else!