I’m writing this novel draft out of order. It’s a weird weird feeling for a reformed pantser who used to start at the beginning and see what happened along the way. It happened by accident–my outline had holes in it when I started writing, and I got stuck on certain scenes, so I started skipping around.<\/p>\n
Which, some months later, led me to wonder how I’ll know when I’m done. Getting to the end won’t do it: although I haven’t written the last scene yet, I’ve written pretty close to it, and I still have big gaps earlier in the book. But having no changes to make won’t do it either–I already have plenty of fixes to make for the next draft, but I know I don’t need to make them for the first draft. If I wait until I have nothing to change, I’ll never be done.<\/p>\n
If a scene is done enough that the changes I want to make aren’t going to affect the story–or if I (think I) know exactly what effects it will have–then it’s done. <\/p>\n
Once all the scenes get to that point? Basically, once the whole plot is in place, I will call the draft done. (Soon.) <\/p>\n
So I’m making sure all the scenes are written in actual prose, not just my incredibly verbose detailed scene outlines, adding references to important things that I discover in act 3 to earlier scenes, fixing plot holes, and other major work. Once the bones are in place, I’ll deal with all those other changes.<\/p>\n
Of course I’m going to be wrong about how the story will change for draft 2, but that’s draft 2’s problem.<\/p>\n
Next week I’ll talk about how I’m using TaskPaper<\/a> to keep track of what needs to be done in each scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m writing this novel draft out of order. It’s a weird weird feeling for a reformed pantser who used to start at the beginning and see what happened along the way. It happened by accident–my outline had holes in it … Continue reading