Nathan Bransford - The Forums

It took me a year and a half to write my first draft. I'm on year 3 of revisions and thinking it's time to label it a trunk novel and move on. The prologue and first three chapters are really strong, and the rest just...yeah. Don't have the energy to rewrite it a 7th or 8th time.

Okay, now I may get completely ripped to pieces here, but generally apart from a lot of typos and grammatical stuff, my first draft is usually okay. I do edit, but the story, characters, plot, everything stays the same, I might change some dialogue, but that's about it. I have no idea how the story comes out fully formed, but when I'm in the flow, it just kind of writes itself! If I'm not in the flow, then it doesn't come out very well at all! I also find it hard to go back and add things after, cos usually for me, once it's written - it's done. But I'm having to learn how to do that cos I've just finished my second novel, and at 38,000 words it's really not long enough for publication. Plus I think theres a lot more detail I could add. But the first novel was about 96,000 words on the first draft, and after several edits of spelling and dialogue, stayed at 96,000 words.

Mostly mine is the lack of world building. I write historical fiction--often set in another culture too--so I have SO MUCH research to do to make it even close to believable. I generally will highlight a section that needs more research and I have a huge Word doc full of areas that need clarification.

Also, my characters can sometimes be too 21st century for the time they're living in--I suppose that goes along with the lack of world building.

Hey, as long as you don't say it's PERFECT, there will be no cyber shanking. :-P

very crappy ;)

Mine come out perfect.

(ack...I just got shanked...)

Just kidding.

Actually, my first drafts aren't too bad. The majority of the story spine is there. Some descriptions are missing and I'll typically have a note that says "[describe room]". Or some event takes place I'm not quite sure about so I'll note "[they talk, find out clues here]". And I've even written this in one draft: "[she goes batshit and kicks his ass]".

On subsequent passes, I'll add more details.

First drafts during NaNoWriMo: quite a lot of crap, but intense characters and dialogues.

First drafts at 'normal' speed: Better description and better sentence structure. There's less missing and it generally holds together a lot better. It's 'okay-ish', I'd say. :)

I'm not so worried about sentence structure, grammar etc on my first draft - what concerns me is I'm not entirely sure where it's going - that I'm writing for the sake of writing at the moment. Does anyone else have that?
First drafts are meant to be bad - I made my peace with that. :)

My first drafts tend to look like most other people's second or third draft, but I take longer doing it. Six of one, half dozen the other. Whereas many people write hot and edit slowly, I do the opposite. It all evens out.

EMC wrote:what concerns me is I'm not entirely sure where it's going - that I'm writing for the sake of writing at the moment.

I think most of us have felt that way at least one time or another. It seems to be a theme I've noticed in a lot of our posts. I know that personally I've been known to sit and write without a clue how (or if) it's going to work in my WIP. I just keep writing, because even if it doesn't work now it might be perfect for something down the road. I have literally been saved from a corner I'd written myself into by pulling out something I wrote for a different project.

The main point, though, is that you're writing! Each word written, whether beautiful or trash, improves our skills and makes us better writers. So even if you are just writing for the sake of writing at the moment, you're advancing your future career (and hopefully doing something you love at the same time)!

I'm constantly reading as I write, so I think it's pretty free of typos, etc. My biggest problem is writing in 1st person that reads like 3rd. Once I go in and add details, it's several pages longer. Then once I delete all the justs and reallys, it's roughly the same length it started.

Actually... a lot better than I thought it was. I just went back to read a part I hadn't read since writing it (which was about three and a half months ago) and I couldn't stop reading. I was actually enjoying reading my own novel, and it was the first draft! I've never had that experience before.

Not to say it didn't have a bazillion problems....