Writing a first draft.
In my first blog, I talked a little about writing the first draft, though it is fair to say I skipped over a few steps. Writing a first draft is way more complicated than what I previously wrote down. So, to give a little more insight in my upcoming book, Gravity Goat, I will take you through the steps I took to finish a first draft.
In my opinion, the most fun part begins once you’ve come up with an idea. The moment you start putting your crazy thoughts in order and start shaping the puzzle of ideas that will turn into a book.
The first thing I do after I have chosen a story is to write down what it is about. This is a short summary that doesn’t have character names yet and has major plot holes. Those are things I will fix later. At the start, I want to know what I want to tell. What adventure do I want my characters to go on? And who are my characters?
Then, I will pick that short summary apart. There will always be multiple threads that together make the story. By untangling those threads, I will get a better understanding of all that will happen inside the book.
With those threads, I will write about 50 scene summaries. Summaries that are one sentence long but hold the things that are important. For example, these are the first three scene summaries of Gravity Goat:
1) Dawn is in the car Driving to her new home.
2) It is summer, she has to help carry the boxes inside.
3) To get out of carrying boxes, she sneaks off.
As you can tell, they are not mind-blowing, but they give me a good idea of what happens inside the world of the book. The further I get in the story, the more blank spots there are. This is where things start to jump a little. But as long as I have those points, connecting them will be a lot easier.
Once that is done, I will start forming the chapters based on these summaries. For Gravity Goat I tried to give each chapter 3 scenes (on average). So, in this case, the first three summaries I just showed are the first chapter of Gravity Goat.
Some of these scenes will be open, the blank spots that I have yet to fill in. After I have filled in all that I know, I will go back to those threads I picked apart. Following each one individually, I start putting in scenes that I need to get from one end of the thread to the other. Slowly putting in the last puzzle pieces to create a full story.
With those scenes planned out, there is only one thing left to do; write. Using the guide, which are the scene summaries, I slowly start building the story around it.
For my first draft, I go chronologically. Chapter after chapter. Elaborating on the short summaries. Writing the book.
During this phase, there are many scenes that aren’t really necessary or don’t really fit into the story. I don’t worry about that too much. All I want is I go through it, from start to finish. What will and won’t make the book will come in my first round of edits.
I am currently reading the first draft of Gravity Goat. Deciding what will stay and what will go. A tough process that takes a lot of time. But perhaps an interesting subject for a future blog…
Join Donkey Book’s emailing list to keep up to date on all the blogs and newsletters that will be coming!