Thursday, May 14, 2015

Defining the first draft of a book

After all this time writing my first novel, I'm still trying to figure out what the term "first draft" means to me. Because when I find out, then I can FINALLY brag to all my friends and strangers that I've finished one.
I really wish I could do this. Maybe even flip out dancing and record myself singing k-pop songs to show the world my excitement. 
        
So what is stopping me from having a completed first draft? 

1)  Not enough character dialogue
2)  Too much info dumping

I spent a good deal of time on my November nano making all my scenes as perfect as I could get them. I fleshed out the character interactions and made cute dialogues between them. Most of the writing I put on my blog as excerpts, because it was actually worthy of other people reading them.             

When November ended, I wrote 50k and didn't even reach the halfway point into my story. What on earth did I babble about that whole time? Most of all, I failed to get my first draft.  
        Then camp rolled around in April. 
My main goal was to get to the freaking end of the story. I didn't care any more about people's stupid conversations. I didn't care if they wanted to reveal the most important scene in the book - I just wanted it to be over. 
        So I skipped all the dialogue. I info-dumped my way to glory and just put as little "creative" effort into writing my scenes as possible. So right now, at this moment, do I have a first draft?
        Sigh. 
No. At least, I can't allow myself to think that a scene like this is worthy of the title "first draft:"
REALLY BAD
        The group is thrown into a very strange world - the sky is cloudy and constantly raining. There is no light from sun, moon, or stars.
        At first, the group appears at a very large circular train station, although it is strangely empty. Not a soul. A train approaches the station and almost flies past, until it stops and backs up, opening a door for the group members. The look around suspiciously…but step on the train anyway
       The train is filled with a few people dressed in two different outfits: suits or construction gear. They sit erect, not moving. Either holding their briefcases or construction equipment in their laps.
       At first, they group starts questioning some of the people on the train about the man they saw at the gate. At his description the people don’t say anything and just keep on with their business. Everyone is just blase. 
Like....I would call this a rough draft. I still need to go back and at least put some dialogue or description to upgrade this dump of words into a "first draft."
        Right?
A better example of a scene that I would call a first draft is more like this:
BETTER
       
         Before Jason could process what kind of question that was, the golden warrior poked him in the forehead. She wiggled her finger up and down, stretching the skin between his eyebrows. She hummed to herself and raised her eyebrows, like she was trying to figure out what species Jason was.
        “Hey what are you doing?” Jason asked and slowly moved his head out of the woman’s pointy finger. “Yeah I’m human. I hope we’re all humans. Right guys?” 
         “Totally human over here too,” Isaac offered. 

         Shiri nodded with skeptic enthusiasm. Neither one of them made an attempt to help Jason or walk a little closer to scare the weird woman away. Their amount of courage melted Jason’s heart. 
         The woman stopped poking him in the head. She removed her finger and sniffed it, hopefully satisfied with her personal inspection. Bright golden colors swirled back into her eyes, and her smile revealed a set of white and perfect teeth. 
         “Truly? I knew this day would come, but so many years have passed. I…Forgive me,” she interrupted herself and let her sword sink back into its sheath. She grasped both Jason’s hands in a warrior’s grip. “Welcome, children of men. My name is Sun, guardian of Justice. I have been sent to watch for your arrival.”
 
So right now, I'm stuck on a conundrum. I finally finished my story - every scene is labeled, outlined, in order, and has a minimum of 200 words describing what should happen in it. 
        However. 
Only half my story is composed of fleshed out scenes like the "better" example I posted above. The rest of them are info-dumped and oh boy, are they in need of some serious help. And it's gonna take a lot of motivation to go and finish a "first draft" of all those scenes, just so I can be officially done with the first draft of the entire book. 
        Let's not even talk about editing yet, shall we?

        If you can, please let me know. Am I crazy?
        
Do other people put this much thought into what constitutes a first draft? Is it always different depending on what type of story you are writing? When can I finally celebrate that the first wave of difficulty is over....?
Just let me know in the comments and that would be super helpful :D

Happy Thursday and write on!

3 comments:

  1. That's an interesting one... To me, a first draft is the first 'complete' version of a story. By which I mean it has a beginning, a middle and an end. My first draft is barely recognizable as a version of the same story, but it's defintely the spring board that started it all, so I consider it my first draft If you have a complete document that you can work on and revise from, I'd say you can call that a first draft and claim supreme bragging rights :D

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  2. And congratulations on completion!!! Can't wait to talk editing ;)

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    1. NOW IT IS SO TEMPTING to declare that I'm finished with my story! Your explaination makes a lot of sense what a first draft could be...I guess I'm gonna give myself the weekend and see what more I can do to my draft in order to make it complete.
      1) Answer any remaining quesitons I have about my story
      2) Kill some plot bunnies
      3) Write at least one line of dialgoue for each scene.
      Then I might be satisfied....so I'm getting super close. Yay! Thanks for the encouragement!
      (PS. I LOVE editing, so I can't wait to get to that part :P )

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