{"id":302,"date":"2012-07-18T12:20:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T02:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allisontait.com\/first-draft\/"},"modified":"2020-11-30T11:27:05","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T00:27:05","slug":"first-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allisontait.com\/2012\/07\/first-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"First draft"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

On Monday night I completed the first draft of my next novel. It was quite a different proposition to finishing the first draft of my first novel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, I jumped around the room, whooping and hollering, thrilled that I had finished my first full-length manuscript. And it was<\/i> finished. Of that I was convinced.<\/p>\n

This time, I typed that last full stop and gave a little sigh. It was done. Now I have something with which to work. I put up a little Facebook status update:<\/p>\n

“Good news: first draft of second novel is finished. Bad news: at 70,000 words it requires a LOT of work. Sigh. Tomorrow I start again at Chapter One<\/i>.”<\/p>\n

Because now I know.<\/p>\n

Your first draft is not your book<\/a>. It is the promise of your book.<\/p>\n

Even if it wasn’t short (by at least 20,000 words), this book would still require a LOT of work. Being a writer who doesn’t really plot much (as in, not at all), my characters develop as the story does. From a kernel of a person on the first page to having a dimension or two by the end. I know about<\/i> them when I begin, but I don’t know<\/i> them. By the end of the book, I do.<\/p>\n

Which means I must go back and add those dimensions to pages one, two, three… and so on.<\/p>\n

It might sound like a messy way to write a book, but it works for me. I know people who do all that planning in advance<\/a>. They know exactly who they’re dealing with and what those people will do before they even type ‘Once upon a time’ (or a slightly less cliched opening line…).<\/p>\n

I can’t do that. The more I know about what will happen, the less I want to write it down. I made the mistake with this book of writing the last three chapters once I got to the middle of the book. To be fair, I had to. Something had popped up at the 40,000 word mark and I needed to find out if I could resolve that particular ‘pop’. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy and I didn’t want to wait til the last minute to discover that it couldn’t be done.<\/p>\n

So I wrote the ending – and promptly lost interest in the story. There’s no need to write the story when you already know what’s going to happen, right? Er, yes, there is, unless you want a half-finished manuscript rolling around in your bottom drawer forever.<\/p>\n

I gritted my teeth and ploughed ahead, happy to discover that other surprises appeared to make the going easier.<\/p>\n

And now it’s done.<\/p>\n

Except it’s not.<\/p>\n

Back to Chapter One. To build on that promise.<\/p>\n

No whooping and hollering. Not yet.<\/p>\n

\"So<\/a>Are you new here? Welcome to my blog! I\u2019m Allison Tait and you can find out <\/strong>more about me here<\/strong><\/a> and more about my <\/strong>online writing courses here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Subscribe to <\/strong>So You Want To Be A Writer podcast<\/strong><\/a> for more amazing writing advice. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Or check out So You Want To Be A Writer<\/em> (the book), where my co-author Valerie Khoo and I have distilled the best tips from hundreds of author and industry expert interviews. <\/strong>Find out more and buy it here<\/strong><\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday night I completed the first draft of my next novel. It was quite a different proposition to finishing the first draft of my first novel. Then, I jumped around the room, whooping and hollering, thrilled that I had finished my first full-length manuscript. And it was finished. Of that I was convinced. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5],"tags":[723,716],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice-for-writers","category-writing","tag-how-to-write-a-book","tag-tips-for-writers"],"yoast_head":"\nFirst draft - Allison Tait Author<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"First draft, now what? Finished your first draft and wondering what to do next? 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