I just birthed a child. That child’s name is Sins of a Father. What I mean by that is: I finished the first draft. I realize at approx 13,600 it isn’t as long as its going to be in the end, but I put a lot of work into those 13,600 words. That’s the way I do things. The first draft is always shorter than the final product, except in the case of my 100 word drabbles.
My process usually goes like this before I ever let anyone else see what I’ve written:
Step 1: Write the 1st draft. This is more or less a step by step of the story with some of, but not all of the necessary detail.
Step 2: Expand the 1st draft by adding the details I left out. I call this work of art the 2nd draft, or Jamal. For some reason second drafts enjoy being called Jamal.
Step 3: Edit Jamal. This usually shortens the length of the story by rewriting what is necessary and removing what isn’t.
Step 4: Edit again, this time searching for spelling and grammatical errors and other beasts of that variety, also rewriting a little bit more.
Step 5: Unleash the Kraken!
Don’t be stealing my methods now. I know they aren’t common at all. Okay, okay. So they’re very common, except the Jamal part. I’m probably alone on that one. I’m okay with that. Don’t deprive me of the only thing that makes me unique.
July 4th, 2012 at 1:28 PM
Hey Jamal works. I’m glad for you. How long have you been working on it?
July 4th, 2012 at 3:09 PM
Well, there are actually two answers to that question. I wrote for a few months and only produced 9500 words with plans on making it novel length (roughly 60,000 words), then I realized it was a story that was never meant to be novel length. So I threw out everything I had and started fresh with an outline to make it novella length (roughly 18,000 words) instead. Took me just under a week to hammer out this first draft. I started last Thursday and finished it just before this post. I wrote the majority of it over the weekend and kept on the ball to finish it up today. I’m so much happier with the shortened version than I was with the longer bit. Amazing how something as simple as a change in length can light a fire under me. Two or three months of wasted work and lack of desire to write it could have been avoided if I had just realized that in the first place.
July 4th, 2012 at 3:32 PM
do you have to market a novella differently ? — enjoyed the “Kraken” visual, is it hard to cage again?
July 4th, 2012 at 10:22 PM
Honestly, I have no idea on either account. This is my first novella, so we’ll see how it goes. As for the Kraken, I’m not stupid enough to try to get it back in the back. I just have my minions do that for me, but I am running out of minions, so I guess it’s probably pretty difficult.
July 4th, 2012 at 10:26 PM
minions are probably easier to come by than Krakens.
success with your story