Drafting - Tumblr Posts
idk if this counts as a request, but I loved your post on starting, and I was wondering if you had any advice for one step before a writing session (i.e., going from the staring-at-the-wall phase to sitting down in front of some sort of screen and opening the right document). It sounds silly, but that's where I'm at right now; I've figured out how to handle a blank page most of the time, once I'm there, but I'm having trouble getting to that point. Is this something you deal with, and if so, do you have any tips for handling it?
i'm gonna assume you mean the like outlining/drafting stage? like not 'writing' the story but just like making scene outlines and stuff? that's what I'll answer but if it's wrong pls send me a follow up and i'll fix it lmao
outlining is a very person-to-person thing because it fits the story and the style and the blah de blah de blah.
but...here are some basic templates you could build off of and make your own.
the 3 act outline. divide your story into 3 'acts'.
Act 1: set-up and exposition - in the Hobbit, for example, this act would be like the arrival of the dwarves, the setup of the journey, and the beginning of the journey.
This act looks different for every story. you can pick where this act ends, but it usually transitions into the second act right before a point of major conflict or the beginning of rising tension. this act includes the inciting incident and the first 'turning point'.
Act 2: confrontation - the beginning of the intense stuff. In the Hunger Games, this would look like the beginning of the Games, where Katniss is first realizing how dangerous it is, maybe the first time she gets seriously injured. it ends with the 'darkest moment', when the characters feel all is lost and they need a win.
Act 3: resolution - The final act contains the climax, the plot twist, and the fallout. it's the final battle, then any last obstructions to peace, and then the clean-up of everybody going home, wounds being bandaged, the end yayyy.
Personally, I think 3 acts is too vague, so I do 7 acts, which is basically 3 acts divided into two (plus one) to narrow down the different phases. You can absolutely mix it up depending on the story; really big intense stories might benefit from more detailed outlining just to keep the facts straight, whereas smaller stories might not need it.
play around, find what works. if you hate an outlining process, don't use it. don't butcher your story to fit it, just find something that works.
Here are some other misc tips for setting up a writing space:
keep a fact sheet handy. just basic things to remember, if you have a hard time with remembering setting locations (me cough cough) draw up a lil map to keep it straight.
a goal checklist for the part/chapter. write out generally where you want the story to go in that place, and some need-to-happen things. this can help for writer's block, if you don't know what to write next.
remember it's okay to write out of order. make a separate document for things that you liked but don't necessarily have a 'place' in the story yet. keep it on a back tab and if you realize 'oh that piece of dialogue would be great here' do an ol' copy paste and ta daaa
I hope this answered your question and helped out anyone else who needed this! if it didn't please message me again (no hard feelings my skull is thicker than Oscar's ass) and I will write a follow up!
xox love ya
6 tips to writing your first draft
‣ Write how you want the story to begin and end. Just a few sentences that will summarize what changes happen in the novel, talk it over with some friends to have a better idea of the plot. ‣ Write an outline (you don’t have to follow the outline to a T, there will be change ps as you go along) ‣ Don’t go back and edit in the first draft this could make you feel discouraged. It probably won’t be the best but wait until the whole story is down before you rework it. ‣ Place holders can be used if you don’t know information. Researching everything can slow down the process so use a place holder so you know where you need to go back and edit once the first draft is done. ‣ Have daily goals. Whether it’s to write an hour a day or write 1000 words a day daily goals help in the short term. ‣ Have a deadline. I myself have 100 days to write a first draft, I know it will be difficult but having it there will pressure me into writing so it gets completed.
Writing advice you're not going to like.
People sometimes send me Asks wanting writing advice. I suck at it. I don’t really know how I do the writing, or how one should do the writing, or what one should do to get better at the writing. All I can ever think to say is “write a lot of stuff and you will get better at the writing.” Which is true, but hardly a bolt from the sky.
Well, as it turns out, I do have one piece of Legit Writing Advice, and I am going to share it with you, right now. If you were in any of my writing workshop groups at a con, you’ve heard this advice already.
Warning: you’re going to fucking hate it. But if you do it, you will thank me.
If you have a piece of fiction you’re serious about, something you might want to actually shop around, or just something you really are into and want to make it as good as you can…do NOT edit it.
Repeat. DO NOT EDIT.
REWRITE.
As in, print out the whole fucking thing and re-enter it, every word (or use two screens). Retype the whole thing. Recreate it from the ground up using your first draft as a template. Start with a blank page and re-enter every. single. word.
I hear you screaming. OH MY GOD THAT’S INSANE.
Yes. Yes, it is.
It is also the most powerful thing you will ever do for a piece of fiction that you are serious about.
Now, let’s get real. I don’t do this for most things. I don’t do it for my fanfiction. But if it’s something original, something I might like to get to a professional level - I do it. You absolutely COULD do it for fanfiction. It’s just up to you and how much time you want to sink into a piece.
You can edit, sure. But you WILL NOT get down to the level of change that needs to happen in a second draft. You will let things slide. Your eyes will miss things. You will say “eh, good enough.”
The first time I did this, on someone else’s advice, I was dubious. Within two pages, I was saying WHY HAVE I NOT BEEN DOING THIS ALL THE TIME. I was amazed at how much change was happening. By the time I got to the end, I had an entirely different novel than the one I’d started with. When you’re already re-entering every single word, it’s easy to make deep changes. You’ll reformat sentences, you’ll switch phrases around, you’ll massage your word choice. You’ll discover whole paragraphs that don’t need to be there at all because they became redundant. You’ll find dialogue exchanges that need reimagining. Whole plot points will suddenly be different, whole story arcs will reveal their flaws and get re-drawn.
You cannot get down to the fundamental level of change that’s required just by editing an existing document. You have to rebuild it if you really want your story to evolve. You will be AMAZED at the difference it will make.
It will take time. It will seem like a huge, Herculean task. I’m not saying it’s easy. It isn’t. But it is absolutely revolutionary.
Try it. I promise, you will see what I mean.
*PSA: Tipsy!Lori wrote this post. In case you couldn’t tell.
the beginning and end of everything UPDATE!!!
DISCLAIMER: This is my original work. I choose to share my work here and here specifically for my comrades in the writing community. Plagiarism in any form will not be tolerated.
HI EVERYONE! I FINISHED MY NOVEL! Whooo hoooo!!!
It’s actually sort of surreal, I started it in June of 2020 and now it’s 2021 and it’s over! Ty, Jude, Ada, Dorothy, and Madison have been living in my head since October 2019, and less than a year and a half later, they’ve been brought to life! Crazy!!
A summary in case you forgot/are seeing this and don’t know who the hell I am:
Ty Kassisieh has no direction. He’s just graduated college with a degree he doesn’t care about and no clue what to do with his life. Per his parent’s request to be more like his genius twin sister Ada, he picks up a job at a local library to save some money. There, he meets his coworker Jude, who’s stuck in a position not too far from his own, and Ty immediately sees the potential for companionship. But after speaking to him, Ty discovers Jude is everything he isn’t: he’s cold, introverted, aloof, and worst of all, humorless. Soon, Ty forgets all about his initial goal and becomes determined to crack Jude and see what makes him tick.
Ty’s journey of self-discovery is uprooted completely as what begins as an investigation blossoms into a friendship, and then into something more. Ty is forced to confront the feelings he’s been pushing down since high school and come to terms with himself, his family, and the relationships he thought would never change. It’s only when he befriends a young library patron, Madison, that he finally begins to see the world for what it is and figures out how to pave his own path.
Here are some stats!
Word count: 65,900 (it’ll get at least 20k words longer)
Genre: Romantic comedy
POV: third person limited, present tense
Characters: Ty, Jude, Ada, Madison, Dorothy, Diane, Omar, Paul, Uncle Hubie, Ethel
Chapters: 15
Font: Times New Roman (sorry)
This was my second novel, but the first novel where I actually knew what I was doing, at least a little bit. And holy shit, I learned SO much about my writing process:
1. I cannot pants for the life of me. I have no idea what I’m doing without an outline. But sometimes, the outline doesn’t know best. I added a ton of subplots and off-the-cuff scenes halfway through that have no set up, gave up on subplots that weren’t working halfway through, it’s a disaster of a plot. BUt the important thing is that I know how to make it perfect. I know what the story needs and how to get that.
2. Why can I only write in bursts? I wrote like seven chapters, half the novel, in the month of July. There was a day where I wrote almost 5,000 words. And last night, I wrote for 6 hours straight, without eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom (because frankly, I forgot those things existed) and I cranked out a chapter and a half in a DAY. I had such a headache and was very hungry by the end, but it was SO REWARDING.
3. I noticed while drafting is how often bits of my real life bled through. Little anecdotes, arguments, dynamics and experiences. Those who know me particularly well can probably pick out little allusions to either some of my past works, my friends, and myself.
It was 1:00 AM when I finished, and I live on the east coast of the U.S. so we’d just had a huge Nor’easter (New England for blizzard) and I went outside in the middle of the night, in my pajama pants and my uggs, and stood in my backyard and looked at the trees and processed the fact that wow, I just wrote a novel. It was cathartic and beautiful and I 110% recommend standing in snow up to your knees by yourself in the middle of the night. Very peaceful.
As exciting as it is to be done, it’s kind of weird to be ending it. I started this novel from Ty’s first person POV, and he was just kind of another goofy, dorky character that shared my own sense of humor as well as my sense of perfectionism. But as I wrote, not only did I realize that third person worked so much better, but I started realizing how much of me and my own journey as a queer person had gone into this. It turned from a light-hearted, silly rom-com with little depth, a fun summer project to keep myself busy, to the most self expressive story I’ve ever written. I didn’t expect it to come out with much deeper meaning, it was summer and I was on a light-hearted rom-com kick, and life was carefree and silly and I wanted a book that reflected it. And then, school started, and life just descended into absolute chaos, and it was November, and it was NaNoWriMo, and I was writing my novel while watching CNN for a week straight. (But it all turned out great! New president!)
I can’t remember exactly when I started to incorporate my own struggles growing up as a queer kid, but somehow they bled through in the second half. The last scene of the book is (no spoilers) an incredible breath of fresh air for Ty. It’s something I can only wish for every queer teenager, that moment where you can finally be unapologetically and authentically queer without that nagging worry in the back of your mind. I’ve struggled over this past year with my identity, and as Ty found his place, I found mine as well.
Seriously, writing this book was one of the best experiences I’ve had. Yes, the entire time I had a separate document open, writing down every little thing that needs to change, but I legitimately feel excited for draft 2 and continuing working on this project. I think about how much this book helped me, unconsciously creating the story that I needed to hear, and how maybe, in ten, fifteen years, some queer teenager will be wandering around a bookstore and pick up The Beginning and End of Everything. Maybe just because the cover is pretty. Maybe they like the F. Scott Fitzgerald reference in the title. Maybe they heard about it on Twitter somewhere. But they pick it up, and see themselves in Ty, or in Jude, or in Madison. I know every book that gave me that feeling, I cherish them so deeply, and all I really want is for someone to get that feeling from something I wrote. To see themselves in the pages and know they’re not alone. It’s cheesy, but it’s true, and it’s important.
I think one of my favorite themes in the novel is the whole ‘someone’s got your back’ thing. I 100% did not mean for it to go in the way it did, but I was writing this as I was going through some Stuff, some stuff in which I realized that having someone, just one person in your corner can mean the entire world, if only for that moment. And if there’s no one in your corner when you need it, you can be in someone else’s when they need it. Frankly, I love how it plays out throughout the novel. There was always that theme of Ty and Madison sort of being there for each other, but as I found myself in the first semester of the school year building new friendships with incredible, smart, funny people (albeit most of that being online) and strengthening old bonds, it worked its way in, and it fits perfectly. It adds depth and strength to the story I couldn’t have done consciously.
Essentially, it is still the romantic comedy I intended it to be, but it’s also a coming-of-age (except much older than the traditional coming-of-age). Watching some of my close friends and family graduating college and continuing to struggle with their identities and places in the world I think is what truly carved out this idea. Because not everyone has everything figured out as soon as they graduate, and I feel like, as a teenager, that’s something my friends and I really need to get through our heads. A lot of us expect to have everything figured out as soon as we turn 18. But, we’re 18. There’s a lot of life ahead of us, and we can’t possibly know what we’re going to do so young. So I think that was my main source of inspiration for this novel, and I’m really proud of the way that fleshed out. Of course it needs lots and lots of work, but. I like it. The way my personal life bled through and strengthened the story is incredible to reflect on. Honestly, I really, truly, cannot wait to start working on draft 2.
taglist:
@alicewestwater @august-iswriting @lottieiswriting @phiwrites @jennawritesstories @chloeswords
In the drafting stage of my yet to be titled adult magical girl series. Plz pray for me, drafting is kicking my ass RN
Cuffing Season Draft
I currently am SCOUTING for cuffing szn, but there's this guy (like 5 men and 3 women) that I want so badly but its wtvr.
The Abyssals Sneak Peak - Katya - 2203
~ Ekaterina ‘Katya’ Petrovna Zhigunova, originally from Earth; Deep Space Biological Systems Engineer, class one licensed; aboard the CosmoExplorer V Mission, en route to the first non-native solar system reached by humanity: tasked with helping to create a sustainable, orbital colony. ~
DISCLAIMER: ALL IMAGES, DRAWINGS, & PHOTOGRAPHY HERE ARE NOT MY OWN. ALL IMAGES WERE FOUND ON PINTEREST AND BELONG TO THEIR RIGHTFUL CREATORS. No profit is being made from the images above, they are simply used to convey the personality/appearance/storyline of my original character.