Drafting A Novel - Writing Process

I’m always a little amazed when I do readings at how interested folks are in the mechanics of my writing process.  I suppose it makes sense, that many readers are writers.  And writing is a lonely process.  It develops naturally – a little like a speed skaters movement on the ice.  It’s interesting to know how others go about it.  One thing that is pretty constant about my routine is the way that I handle novel drafts.  I’m working on my seventh novel now and the pattern that emerged for the first few has held consistent over the years.  So in case you’re curious – here is my drafting process:

Draft One: Open a document and pour it all out.  Do not revisit scenes, do not correct.  The goal to create enough pages that there is the semblance of a novel.  I don’t make myself write in sequential order. If I want to write an end scene, I write that.  If I want to write a love scene (even if I have no idea where it fits) I write that.  The next day I may tackle the very opening scenes.  This draft usually generates between 120-150 pages.  It ends with some big gaps. 

Draft Two: I fill in the gaps. I may generate an outline to start this draft, noting what I’ve written and jotting down ideas to fill in the holes.  I go back and I fix things in this draft, but it is still mainly a process of adding scenes and ideas.  The goal of this draft is to have a fully written novel from page 1 to the end.  This is usually where I have 200-220 pages.

Draft Three: I feel like sometimes you have to be nice to yourself.  The only thing I do at draft three is spell check.  It’s an easy victory, and it makes me feel better after the work of the last two drafts.

Draft Four: This draft builds on the last and I go through the whole thing and correct bad sentences and bad grammar.  This is mind numbing.

Draft Five:  I read the whole thing aloud.  Hopefully the last two drafts will have caught any technical errors, but this draft makes the language sing.  This is an intensive draft (almost as much as draft one).  This is where most of the cutting occurs, since finally I am turning an eye (ear actually) to sound and flow.

Draft Six: Another easy victory.  I hire a professional editor for find any problems in the manuscript.  I really labor to send a polished and finished manuscript to this editor.  The goal is to have them catch the things that you start to overlook after 6 months of work on the same damn document.  After awhile you lose your ability to see flaws.  This is also a good “rest” period, since the manuscript is gone for a month.  Sometimes the silence tells you more about a project than grinding it out.  So how dada of me – this is the draft that I write by not writing.

Draft Seven: I review the professional editor’s comments and then work those into the manuscript.  This is usually the part at which I am “Part 1” done.  At this point I start drafting pitch letters and the dreaded synopsis needed to sell the novel. 

Additional Drafts:  If the manuscripts sells there are likely to be additional drafts based on the editor’s comments.  With my about to be published novel The Patron Saint of Lost Comfort Lake, I believe there were four additional drafts to fix problems/gaps and spot errors.  I think it’s important to point out however that I try to be very surgical about these drafts.  I fix what I’ve been asked to look at and treat everything else as off-limits (unless it’s glaring).  I’m a firm believer that you can rework a manuscript too much – until it’s more like a limp dead salamander than a story.  Time and distance help with the urge to savage your manuscript.  Usually there is a great big pause between Draft Seven and working with an editor.  In today’s publishing world it can take me 2-3 years to sell a complete story and get it back from the editor with comments.  By the time this happens, it almost seems as if somebody else wrote the story.  I try not to mess around with their work too much.