The WIP Report: Rough Draft Drafted
Another missive from the edges of sanity—it's WIP Report time! Recently, I finished banging out the rough draft of the Vampire Dragon WIP!
Previous entires:
The WIP Report: Rough Draft Drafted
Done is better than perfect for the rough draft. That's why it's rough! Of course, I find that the sooner you write the right words, the smoother that whole writing process goes.
Here are the deets:
60 chapters
about 2,122 words/chapter
127K total word count
While writing the rough draft, I keep each chapter in a separate file, so I won't know the exact word count until I consolidate all those chapters into a manuscript file. Having said that, I'm guessing the total count is at least 120K. That gives me about 20K words to cut. A large task, if not a monumental one.
For the most part, I wrote the Vampire Dragon WIP to plan, following my detailed outline assiduously. However, I did diverge a bit from the trail in the last third or so because I really wanted to hit it out of the park. I still ended with the same climax, but the route was a bit more dramatic. I executed the same technique for The Bane of Dragons. I was rewarded with the best recognition my writing has received to date—the novel chosen as a top indie favorite by Barnes & Noble. Hopefully, allowing myself to be a little wayward pays off again!
So what's my process, as much as I have one, you ask? First, I write every day, with few exceptions, and I tend to stick to one project, and one project only, until I finish it or give it up. Multitasking is the bane of progress!
I typically outline the story in great detail. It's an iterative process, and I know the plot, such as there is one, inside and out before I begin the rough draft. I also produce other side documents, such as character/place lists and character bios. As I mentioned before, I do allow myself to stray from the outline, using it as a road map from A to B with many possible destinations along the way. I do find that diverging from the outline leads to story bloat. If I have to, or want to, nail a specific word count target, I find sticking to the outline is the best way to do that.
That's my process in a nutshell, but hey, everyone does things a little bit or even vastly differently. But I would say this: if you're having trouble finishing your story, think about doing some upfront planning. You might find that lowering your cognitive load while writing the rough draft helps you reach the finish line, and those words that mean so much to writers: THE END.
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