Second Drafts!

    Ah, the second draft. A milestone in the writing process, a stepping stone to becoming published, and sometimes the equivalent of a sharp rock in a person's shoe. Somewhere out there in the big world, there must be someone who can whip up the second draft of their manuscript with ease. But for the rest of we mortals, it's usually not so easy, right?

    It takes longer (or seems to), because we're rewriting parts and even whole chapters of a story we already know back and forth. It's not like re-reading a story; we're taking each scene apart and trying to figure out how to phrase it best. And since we know what stage of the story we're actually writing, we can easily be aware of just how many more major story events we have to work through before reaching the end.

    And in the second draft, we really have to focus on fixing the small problems. Back in the Draft Number One, we could just throw these over our shoulders trilling "the edits are later!" and write what we want to push the plot forward. But now (unless you save those kind of edits for a later draft, of course), we have to start dealing with the little consistency issues and grammar problems. Now we have to slow down from world-building and make sure John Doe doesn't have blue eyes in Chapter One and green eyes in the epilogue.

    And then there's the word count! Ulgh, when there's over 100, 000 words! We want to keep all the good stuff we've spent time thinking up, right? But of course, 100,000 plus words is a little hard to swallow, so into the "Extra Scenes" file it goes. And then there are the times when the manuscripts are too short; that's not too fun either. Because we want everything to be quality material--no plot clutter, and no scenes that seem to pop out of nowhere--and that can take quite a bit of time to come up with.

    But even with the tricky parts of writing a second draft, there are still a lot of great things about them! They're a stage in the creative process that's full of possibilities, for one. It's the part where we mold with the material of the first draft; organizing the plot structure to the way it needs to be, shaping the characters' personalities, and building up the settings more. We get to develop and focus on more aspects of the story than we probably could have while getting the main plot down in the first draft.

    Plus, now that we're well into the second draft of the story, we probably know the characters a lot better. Having worked with them for hours and seeing where their actions take them in the plot, it's most likely gotten easier to know how they think, what they believe, what they would do, and all the other awesome things that make up a character. They aren't as much of a mystery as they might have been during the first draft.

    And on top of all those things, the very fact that we've gotten so far in writing the story means something good. Because finishing one whole draft and choosing to soldier through another is probably a pretty good sign that this story is something special. It shows that it's worth investing more time and focus on; that it isn't just a slightly interesting tale that we'd like to try out, but that it's a really good story that's worth sharing with the rest of the world.

    So: second drafts. What do you think of them? Do you kind of get hung up on them sometimes? Or do the less-than-awesome portions seem small in comparison to all the other awesome stuff?

"Micro Managing" While Writing is Like Sculpting

    You know how when a person is writing (usually a first draft or a rewrite) they can stop, go back a couple sentences, edit a paragraph slightly, and then go back to where they paused and start writing again? It's like having little bouts of micro management, making small revisions to the manuscript before it's even completed.
    That kind of resembles the process of sculpting with modeling clay, doesn't it? It could also be likened to sculpting with rock, of course, but personally I think the modeling clay kind of sculpting is more accurate. Because with  something hard like rock, the sculpting involves chipping things away with great care to form an image, and you can't add more rock onto it without some inconvenience, so major changes can't really be done over and over again. However, with something soft like modeling clay, you're using your hands to mold, remold, and sometimes carve in order to create something, and you can make additions and big adjustments without needing a new block.
    Which is more like what micro managing while writing a piece is usually like. Adding more sentences to make the scene more thorough, removing fluff that just clutters up space, replacing words with better-sounding ones, making little improvements. The gradual revisions that happen before the piece is actually done might not be as in-depth and complete as the actual revision stage, but they definitely improve the writing piece, especially over time.
    For one, it makes the manuscript look a little nicer; which is awesome not only because that makes it more fun to reread, but it can also make it less frustrating to edit later. Also, going back to rewrite portions of text also makes things a little more balanced; it keeps the manuscript from being full of paragraphs with identical lengths, and it ensures that an action which should take five sentences isn't condensed into one, or vice versa. The details get smoothed over a bit with this kind of writing, and consistency is kept up. Plus, writing like this is also something of a breather; it gives a short break from planning and jotting down new paragraphs one after another, without stopping up the creative juices.
    So overall, like sculpting, micro managing during the writing process brings small improvements that can do a lot of good in a manuscript.
    Do you agree? Do you micro manage while you write? Or do you wait until a set time to get to adjusting and reshaping the writing?

One Step at a Time

Monitoring one's story's progress can be kind of like reading
a book and glancing at the edges to see what "percentage" of the pages
are left to read--only writing takes longer than reading.

    Waiting a very long time for a good book to be completed and ready to read can be very, very, very boring--especially when it's one's own book! In that situation, a writer gets to watch each tiny step forward, but also have an idea of how much more still needs to be done.
    Writing projects can be like that quite a lot, can't they?  Especially when it's a project as long as a novel. Writing is time-consuming; writing a chapter could take over an hour, and some scenes take numerous re-writes in order for that part of the story to turn out right. With a certain time requirement for writing just one part of the story, and other activities in life to pay attention to, the writing process can end up being taking little steps day by day for a long, long time. Compared to the plotting stage of writing, where one could have the whole story down within a week, it's like a snail's pace. And thinking about how many more chapters/scenes--and days--have to go by before one finally has their beautiful manuscript completed can really stink.
    But having a positive mindset about it can make things better--a lot better. It can even make the long wait pleasant.
    When one can end their day knowing that they've got one more chapter completed, they can think about how they're one step closer to the end than they were yesterday; and that tomorrow, they'll be yet another step closer, or even two! And when thinking about the big picture, counting all the hours it'll be taking to finish the first (or second, or third) draft can give an encouraging idea of how much time and attention is being given to this story, of how much more quality there's going to be in the end.
    So while going one step at a time might be slow, thinking about the positive factors of it can make the wait more tolerable, right? What do you think?

Anne Lamott: "Until They've Done It"

 

"Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it."

~Anne Lamott

    This quote is funny! And also very inspirational; a good phrase to remember when one's feeling doubts about a project. And personally, I think this marvelous quote can be applied to every part of the writing process, not just one.
    During the plotting of a story, a writer thinks up the basic ideas and tries to graph it all out, either in their mind or on paper. During this period, some ideas can sound too crazy or too random to work well, and it can be difficult every now and then to finding ways to connect two events in the story together ("now how does the main character get from their epiphany to the climax scene?"). There could be a whole lot of plot holes and unknown factors in this planning stage, like what a character is actually like when they're written, and this could make the story seem skeletal. But this is okay, because the plotting stage isn't the final result, but the launching pad for the next steps, the time to go crazy with "what ifs."
    Then there's the first draft stage of writing. While writing this draft, it can seem like everything's a mess in comparison to how beautiful it was while imagining it; but fortunately this isn't a disaster because the first draft is supposed to be that way! It's the draft meant for walking the grounds of the story for the first time, getting an insider's view of who the characters actually are, what the scenery is like, and which actions work well in the story. It's the discovery draft, and discovery expeditions can come across a couple unexpected finds before reaching what they were seeking in the first place.
    After the first draft is done, the rewrites (or the editing stage) can happen. And this might be even more difficult than the first draft, because now a writer has the task of bringing change to factors in the story that need improvement without changing things that were actually done well. But throughout this whole stage of the process, the question of "Which changes are the right ones?" is always there, and very pressing because no one wants to accidentally get rid of something good. Making those decisions can seem blind sometimes (a really frightening thought), but the revision stage is more than just taking things out; it's putting more things in, making additions. It's as much as a creative process as plotting the story and writing the first draft was, and this means that new awesome things can be created in the revisions.
    So in every area of writing, this quote by Anne Lamott can be applied and used to give encouragement. Do you agree? :)