Trials of a First Draft

WoW!

The first draft of my first ever novel! That was quite a feat! Day Month after month of writing and waiting. Finally, here it is.

In this piece, I want to capture my experience of writing the first draft of a full-length novel for the first time. All the challenges, revelations, good things, and goof-ups that cropped up their heads while writing the first draft, in hope that someday someone might find it useful. So, here we go.

Whenever I used to read a book that fell short of my expectations my immediate thought was; how I could have done a better job at writing a book. Boy, was I in for a surprise when it actually came to putting my money where my mouth is.

Let me tell you this first thing. It is not for the faint-hearted.

IT. IS. HARD.

Writing a good novel might as well be the hardest things you would ever do. After all, you are building a whole world of your own, from your mind. But hey, it is not without its rewards, which are always almost worth the effort.

Anyways, I’m here to try and explain my experience. Let’s get started.

• Never stop writing. Ever (Seriously!)

As I started writing the novel, the first problem I faced was, managing to write consistently (I assume that anyone reading this would most probably be an aspiring author and would be holding a full-time job till they are able to earn a living out of writing). It becomes hard, at times impossible, to sit down and write after a long day of work or when you are in the middle of an interesting TV-series. Your mind is just not ready to settle down and churn out word after word. The worst I had to struggle with were the hordes of distractions at hands length (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc. etc.).

I know! It’s the hardest part of writing. To sit down and Write.

The good news is words gather over time. What is only a page a day will soon accrue into chapters and soon into a book. Spending time daily is crucial. 500 words daily is still 3500 words when compared to 2000 words on weekends. Also, like any other craft, the more one writes, the easier it gets. So, start writing consistently.

Moreover, the brilliance of an idea is in its details. The longer the gap between the writing sessions, the hazier these details become. Also, ideas tend to lose their lustre over time as you get insensitive to it. Thus, it becomes that much important to capture the idea while it is fresh and can be moulded to our wish.

• Notes are your friends

That brings us to the second point. Note down everything!

After more than a year of writing, I can now say with absolute confidence that you will forget one hundred percent of anything that you don’t pen down. Even the most brilliant of ideas that kept you awake at nights will slowly fade away into the cold abyss of your thoughts when left unattended. Don’t believe me? Try remembering the world-shattering story idea that you had as a kid. Okay. I know. That’s a bit farfetched. But the point is, even good ideas do not stay forever. We need to note them down as and when they occur.

I might have lost almost half the story to unpenned ideas. What a shame!

Note anything that comes to your mind. A dialogue, setting, a character quirk, plot etc. etc. Nowadays it is as easy as opening your phone and recording as you speak your thought out loud. So, get going and catch those pearls that have been jostling around your head all along.

• Things go bollocks even as you write

Have you been wondering why it has been getting increasingly hard after the halfway mark? Well, I was. And the answer is, complexity in your story increases every time you write. After all, you are creating rules for your world with every word you write. You are going to have conflicting interests between your lead characters which you hadn’t anticipated before or you wouldn’t have thought through the repercussions of the crucial decision that you forced on one of your characters or a new character that you introduced might need a lot of foreshadowing or any number of things. As you keep adding details to the story, you are going to find it difficult to write another word without violating at least dozens of previous plot points.

Fret not. Everything is for the good. It’s all part of the grand plan. THE LEARNING CURVE.

After all, we are only human and cannot possibly plot everything beforehand. So, the best thing we can do is to plough through the story and reach the end. After that, you’ll have enough time and motivation to edit it to your liking. By the time, you’ll also be so fluent with your story. All the plot holes, conflicts and anything else that needs fixing are better left till you know the whole story (Yes, the first draft is just a discovery draft even for people who meticulously plot their novel).

• You wouldn’t be as particular about the quality of writing as you were in the beginning. But that’s okay. That’s how it’s supposed to be. At least I guess so!

The first chapter took me a whole week to write and it was just two thousand odd words long. And the second chapter, one of similar length, took me lesser time and so on till I ended up writing one chapter every day. What changed between the first chapter and the rest of the chapters was that in the first chapter I was focused on the quality of writing instead of focusing on the story.

I agree, quality of writing is of paramount importance as the story itself. One must definitely not compromise on such things. On the other hand, if I had been fixated on producing the best chapter every time I sat down to write, I wouldn’t have finished the novel. At least, not in this lifetime. I personally felt that the story took a front seat as soon as I learnt to let go of my craving to make every sentence perfect. After all, in first drafts, one is just trying to flesh out the story, aren’t we?

• Welcome to the world of clichés

Leaving alone experienced and established authors, everyone else, even those who have published a couple of books, will have their pages filled with clichés, boring descriptions and dialogues that would put a toddler to shame. If you are a plot-oriented person then this is going to be even more pronounced.

Hey, but it’s okay. You are only trying to capture the overall feel of the moment in the first draft. The specifics can always be added later. That’s what editing is for. More often than not, these interest-killers will pop out when you read the draft after you sufficiently distance yourself from the work. Don’t believe me again, try reading something of your that you have developed a distance from. You’ll know what I’m talking about.

• Making friends with your characters

Like every friend we acquire over our lifetime, our characters are total strangers to us while we first meet them. But, like friends, you familiarize with them pretty quick. So, give it some time. You do not want to force yourself to know everything about your characters from the get-go. You have time. You’ll find out more about them as you write the story.

I, for one, discovery-write my characters (like my favourite author and role model Brandon Sanderson does). Now that I have finished my first draft, I exactly know how the character arcs should be to supplement the story and now, I could go back and change their character traits. If I had been rigid about every character, then I would have ended up with an equally rigid story and no room for improvement. So, if I have anything to say, it would be to not make your characters rigid and to explore the possibilities (unless yours is a character-driven story. In that case, I’m not the right person to advise about this).

• Drowning in versions?! Yeah, me too

When I started my story, I never would have thought that I would end up with at least ten different versions of the same story! Yet, here I am!

Like I had mentioned earlier, the story changes and takes a shape of its own as it progress. You can try and beat it into the shape you want, but it will still surprise you with some unexpected opportunities so that you end up with several versions of the story in your head.

And yes, it’s annoying. Because, you cannot unlearn any of the versions.

Again, the silver lining is, you do not have to. Every time a new version pops up, just make a note to yourself (and most importantly on a notebook or word document. Remember the second point I was trying to make?). All the editing can be left for later stages. Do not go back to edit the previous chapters to match the current version. The current version is not guaranteed to end up as the final version.

• First 200 words is the key

Every time you sit down to write, the story would not come to you immediately. But that’s easy to fix. And you have guessed it, you just have to write it away. Most of the times when you read what you had written previously, it would set you right in the groove. If not, just sit down and write the first 200 words for the day. I guarantee that the story will take over from there.

So, every time you feel like not writing or feel a writer’s block coming your way, just sit down and write the first few words. It worked wonders for me.

Few pointers which I would have been happy to have known before I started writing.

• Never, ever, throw away anything you write. Keep a separate document where you can dump those things. They might come in handy at later stages.
• Accountability partners do not work unless you have the right person. Not everyone is as motivated as you to finish “your” book. You have to find your own motivation.
• Backup the document on the cloud every time you write. It would be a total shame if the computer ends up crashing (hope that doesn’t happen) and you lost all the precious hours you put in. So, backup the document. As much and in as many places as you can. I normally do it on the cloud and one copy for every ten chapters on my hard disc.
• Music helps. But only those which are non-intrusive and stay in the background.
• Your plot is not sacrosanct. You can change them. It is allowed! Most of the times the changes turn out to be better than what you had originally thought.
• Sacrifices are to be made. Like everyone else, we have only 24 hours to a day. If we are going to spend some of it writing a novel, we are sure to miss out on many other things. So, be ready for that.
• Routine is important. Routine builds up inertia and inertia is everything.
• When in doubt, write. When in confusion, write. When in a flow, write. Just write.

Most of the points here will point to the one thing, which is obviously the most important thing to keep in mind. To keep writing.

So, what are you waiting for then? Go get to your writing 😊