First Novel Draft

[JS Wiig]

I just finished my first first draft!

Came in just under 75,000 words in 155 days. I started out with a basic chapter outline, three scenes per chapter, an outline paragraph for each scene. I wrote each scene in a random order, so it will definitely be interesting on the re-read. I felt the random method helped keep things fresh, though I already know there will be some continuity and repetition issues.

This was definitely a discovery draft for me. I used a minimal outline and learned a ton about the story and characters. I really look forward to starting on revisions, but...

I’ve a lot of other short story projects to work on in the meantime, so I won’t be surprised if it’s not a year before I get back to this one. Should be well fermented by then!

 

[ckatt]

Congrats
I've thought about writing out of order like that but never tried. How did you choose which scene to write next? Did the narrative guide you, or was it a roll of the dice?

 

[Phyrebrat]

Congratulations @JS Wiig!!

Finishing draft one can be so euphoric (or depressing depending on your tendency)

pH

 

[JS Wiig]

Congrats
I've thought about writing out of order like that but never tried. How did you choose which scene to write next? Did the narrative guide you, or was it a roll of the dice?

Roll of the dice.

Now I get to describe my total engineer nerdiness.

Ok, so, basic outline is sixteen chapters, three scenes each chapter for a total of forty-eight scenes. Open up an Excel spreadsheet and in a column input scenes—ch1s1, ch1s2, ch1s3 so on and so forth. Next, in adjacent column input “=RAND()” and copy on down the line to generate a random number for each scene. Now sort the whole affair by random column ascending (or descending, if that’s your bag) and viola! random scene list.

 

[JS Wiig]

Congratulations @JS Wiig!!

Finishing draft one can be so euphoric (or depressing depending on your tendency)

pH

Thanks!

Right now it feels a bit surreal. I've spent the last five months with this story and characters, and now I'll be moving on to some other, shorter projects for the time being; I think I'm going to miss them.

I can't believe I actually wrote 75,000 words! Hope they are not total garbage, but if so, ya live ya learn eh?

 

[Steve Harrison]

Well done, @JS Wiig! It's a fabulous feeling to finish a novel.

My latest is a few weeks away and though it will be shorter at 70k words, it's taken well over a year. I can't sit on mine when I finish the draft, so I plunge straight into editing and move on to the next novel once I start submitting to agents.

Good luck with the book!

 

[Juliana]

Congratulations @JS Wiig! Feels great, right? Good luck on the new projects.

 

[JS Wiig]

Congratulations @JS Wiig! Feels great, right? Good luck on the new projects.

Indeed! It gives me the confidence that I can get the words down for a larger project.

Now we’ll see if I can get through the revision process...