My Writing Process

So today, before my normal progress update tonight, I'm going to write a little bit about my writing process for this book, which I am currently calling Shadow Lands. The writing process for me is going in like 3 stages to read more, click below.




Stage 1: The Rough Draft. In the rough draft my goal is to write out the story, to get the details on paper. As you will see from the images below there will probably be some scribbling out, some name changes, moments where section titles become different because I feel there should be a different focus (also, as you'll see from the second image below, I like to doodle) (sorry al of the images are sideways)

Lots of Scribbles at the bottom of that page--sometimes pages have none, sometimes they have a lot.

The title of this particular section changed a lot.

As you have no doubt noticed, I write the rough draft in pen in notebooks (yeah, 160k...its gonna take a lot of notebooks. oy). When I do the first draft, I write one day in black ink and the next day in blue to provide myself a good idea of how much progress I have made.

Two separate days: the first half is written in blue ink, the bottom begins the next day's work in black.

I won't lie, at first the idea of writing by hand turned me off. But when I would set in front of the computer, I would be distracted, and that was not conducive to progressive writing. So I began writing by hand, and I could not be happier. Knowing myself as well as I do, in the first draft I'll have about 160k words. I have a very strong opinion over how much progress I make in a day--if I don't meet my own standards, I feel bad. I try to fit in as much writing time as possible--even carrying my writing notebook so that I can get writing done in small periods of downtime throughout the day.

Stage 2: The First Draft. This IS different than the rough draft. This is the draft that consists of me taking sections of what I've hand written and transcribing them to the computer. This is where the first level of editing begins. What is written in the notebook and what is typed into the computer are similar, but definitely different. In stage two of the draft I also tend to add about 500 words to the sections (so far) meaning the first draft will likely be about 169k, so longer than the rough draft.

Stage 3: Beta Reader Draft. This draft is taking place, or at least being prepared, as I complete the first draft (which is also being done as I complete the rough draft, its sort of flowing). What happens is this: my dear friend, who is my beta reader, being the person who sees the work in progress, will read it, find continuity errors, or moments of confusion, or places that the story isn't quite making sense, etc., and make her own demarcations. She might catch grammatical and spelling errors that I miss as I'm typing it. She gives it to me, and I use the first draft along with her edits and comments to create the third draft form of the story. This draft will probably remain at the same word count of the first draft, more or less.

Stage 4: Final Draft. This is where the story tightening happens. I will seriously read it, looking for all the errors that were to have been spotted in Stage 3, finding sentences, words, paragraphs, maybe entire sections, that don't belong or that don't really contribute to the telling of the story. This is when I hammer this hulking monster into more or less the form it should be. The word count here (this is all tentative of course) will probably go to between 160 and 165k.

Plotting 1: Idea Pad. An important part of my writing, that doesn't fit into the process, really, is the idea pad (which you will see pictured below). On the idea pad I jot down ideas that I have--plot points that come to light, concepts that need to be fleshed out and addressed in the story, and sometimes ideas and thoughts about the next book (gotta get through the first one first!). Using the idea pad, for instance, really helped me flesh out the middle content of Shadow Lands.

Idea Pad

Plotting 2: The Q & A Conversation. I can not stress enough the importance of this section of plotting and brainstorming. While I might have a general idea of the layout of the story, the land, the characters, and how things work, it is in the Q & A Conversation with my beta reader that everything gets fleshed out. I might know why a character is doing something, and she might ask "Is that because of this?" and the answer might be "yes, actually--insert more detail" or "No, it's more of a insert more detail". These questions about character dynamics, motivations, etc., all help make a more complete and realized story.

Okay, that's enough about my personal writing progress. Can't put it off any longer: I need to get back to writing; there's about 1000 more words I want to get done today to feel comfortable! Later!