How I am doing my first drafts: make a list of key scenes in the novel. Write them. Don't worry about connecting the scenes. Write beginning, middle and end scenes, and just start wherever to write them instead of trying to go in order. As long as the scenes on my list are being written, nothing else matters. 1st draft is mixing the clay. 2nd draft is beginning to shape the skeletal of the sculpture I intend to create.
You can lay a brick on a keyboard to hit your 50K, but it wouldn't be a novel... 🤣 So I totally agree! I have a few projects like that, which didn't meet the minimum requirements of it being salvageable. So I'm currently raising my first draft standards, and holding my horses (a little bit longer) in the prep phase too. ;)
'I can generate nonsense in sufficient quantities' is my new favourite sentence ever. Really like the conclusion you came to about when you should put the effort in! For our first draft, we left a lot to editing and thought that would be Completely Fine but it turns out that planning was a better fit for us, so our second draft became a better outlined version to potentially lessen editing later...how this video got onto a dick-related tangent, I'll never know, but I'm not mad. Charity shops books are pure gold. - Maddie x
'She could generate nonsense in sufficient quantities' will probably be on my headstone one day xD I love how each novel teaches us not just what good writing looks like, but also our best methodology for creating it :)
During Camp Nano i basically pantsed it, and that made me realised that for future stories I need to spend more time outlining. I'm still on the 1st draft for my WIP but for draft 2, i will definitely remember your advice so that I can better streamline my writing process.
I used to toss away my first draft's and simply re-write, then edit three to four times. Now, twenty years later, I write better first draft's, but I edit way, way more. I can't simply trash 50K+ draft anymore, no time!
😂 For Why... Besides that funny tangent this was great advice on first drafts. I’m a planner so for my camp nano project I have to organize 7k words to get a clear outline.
I love that you have such a pretty book on male genitalia, lol. First drafts are the worst. It will take me YEARS to finish one. I get twenty or thirty thousand words in and then run back screaming to the beginning to revise. Once I have something to work with, I feel less overwhelmed. I can tweak and rearrange to my heart's content. It's one of the reasons why my rewrite is taking so long. I'm writing most of the chapters from scratch so it feels like a first draft.
20-30k is for SURE the hardest part of any draft! I used to abandon projects around that mark all the time. I've learned to push through, but it's still a horrible phase of the first draft.
in previous novels, i've done most of the prewriting work up front and the first draft was in better shape. in the one i'm doing right now, i have a much looser first draft and i have a LOT to do in my revision now. lol. also that NaNo challenge sounds INSANE. what?!
Thank you for this video! Writing the draft is the part I dislike the most, so I’m trying to figure out how to do it so I can rush through it and get to editing 😅
Totally agree! I love what you said about taking a little more time on the parts that we DO like, in order to make the parts we don't like a little bit easier. I've come to discover I love the initial drafting stage, and it totally makes sense to be a bit more careful with it so by the time I have to edit I won't want to tear it up so many times haha. Also, love the book on dicks ;) Yup.
Subscribed, imo first drafts can be really bad as long as you get down what you are trying to convey. I like taking a longer amount of time on editing the draft to clean it up.
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How I am doing my first drafts: make a list of key scenes in the novel. Write them. Don't worry about connecting the scenes. Write beginning, middle and end scenes, and just start wherever to write them instead of trying to go in order. As long as the scenes on my list are being written, nothing else matters. 1st draft is mixing the clay. 2nd draft is beginning to shape the skeletal of the sculpture I intend to create.
Sounds like a great approach :D
You can lay a brick on a keyboard to hit your 50K, but it wouldn't be a novel... 🤣 So I totally agree! I have a few projects like that, which didn't meet the minimum requirements of it being salvageable. So I'm currently raising my first draft standards, and holding my horses (a little bit longer) in the prep phase too. ;)
Yes, exactly! Word count alone does not make a novel.
'I can generate nonsense in sufficient quantities' is my new favourite sentence ever. Really like the conclusion you came to about when you should put the effort in! For our first draft, we left a lot to editing and thought that would be Completely Fine but it turns out that planning was a better fit for us, so our second draft became a better outlined version to potentially lessen editing later...how this video got onto a dick-related tangent, I'll never know, but I'm not mad. Charity shops books are pure gold. - Maddie x
'She could generate nonsense in sufficient quantities' will probably be on my headstone one day xD I love how each novel teaches us not just what good writing looks like, but also our best methodology for creating it :)
During Camp Nano i basically pantsed it, and that made me realised that for future stories I need to spend more time outlining. I'm still on the 1st draft for my WIP but for draft 2, i will definitely remember your advice so that I can better streamline my writing process.
Best of luck with draft 2! :)
I used to toss away my first draft's and simply re-write, then edit three to four times.
Now, twenty years later, I write better first draft's, but I edit way, way more.
I can't simply trash 50K+ draft anymore, no time!
ps.: the know thyself book made me laugh SO much. *victorian dicks* hahaha!
Yeah same, after throwing out that many words in the past I really don't want to go there again if it can be avoided!
😂 For Why... Besides that funny tangent this was great advice on first drafts. I’m a planner so for my camp nano project I have to organize 7k words to get a clear outline.
I love that you have such a pretty book on male genitalia, lol. First drafts are the worst. It will take me YEARS to finish one. I get twenty or thirty thousand words in and then run back screaming to the beginning to revise. Once I have something to work with, I feel less overwhelmed. I can tweak and rearrange to my heart's content. It's one of the reasons why my rewrite is taking so long. I'm writing most of the chapters from scratch so it feels like a first draft.
20-30k is for SURE the hardest part of any draft! I used to abandon projects around that mark all the time. I've learned to push through, but it's still a horrible phase of the first draft.
in previous novels, i've done most of the prewriting work up front and the first draft was in better shape. in the one i'm doing right now, i have a much looser first draft and i have a LOT to do in my revision now. lol. also that NaNo challenge sounds INSANE. what?!
Thank you for this video! Writing the draft is the part I dislike the most, so I’m trying to figure out how to do it so I can rush through it and get to editing 😅
Totally agree! I love what you said about taking a little more time on the parts that we DO like, in order to make the parts we don't like a little bit easier. I've come to discover I love the initial drafting stage, and it totally makes sense to be a bit more careful with it so by the time I have to edit I won't want to tear it up so many times haha. Also, love the book on dicks ;) Yup.
Subscribed, imo first drafts can be really bad as long as you get down what you are trying to convey. I like taking a longer amount of time on editing the draft to clean it up.
Thanks for the sub :D
I Know all about first drafts another great video ☝️ ☝️☝️
My first draft and my outline are basically the same thing.
If you work 12 hours, then 50,000 words = about 70 words a minute -- Non-Stop!!
Your voice is awesome.
Aw thanks :)
I wanna be friiieeeennnnddddssss
let's do it! haha