Thinking about a different drafting method...

[mistressofmuses]

This was a method that a writer (of both fan and original fic) that I follow shared recently. (Ish. I think she was talking about it a couple months ago, but just linked to it again.)

And I can definitely see the appeal. It's sort of similar to how I already like to write things, but with a few differences that I'd maybe be interested in.

When I write, I usually aim for:

- An outline/scene plan (sometimes as simple as a single sentence per scene, sometimes with more detail)
- My first draft (usually I try to make this at least somewhat "good", but also allow it to be pretty rough in places, and do things like take notes regarding things I want to add or take out as I go.)
- A complete rewrite as my second draft (while looking at my first draft, but rewriting/retyping everything. This is where I try to incorporate any changes that happened to the story during the first draft into a coherent whole, or add in bits of foreshadowing, seeding subplots, etc. My goal is generally that this second draft is basically the complete, final version.)
- Final SPAG check and occasional minor edits before posting (chapter by chapter, if it's a multi-chap fic)

All of the above I do chronologically, start to end. Jumping around leaves me with bits that I struggle to connect well, and I feel like I do better with emotional or relationship arcs when I go through them start to finish, rather than moving back and forth on the timeline. My bigger plot changes and added/abandoned subplots also tend to reveal themselves as I go, and it's harder for me to "see" those changes as part of the whole when I'm looking at disparate pieces with significant gaps.

I've met with... reasonable success with this. I've been quite happy with the two fics I'm currently posting, at least. Several of the fics I completed last year only partially followed my preferred pattern, often because I'd done second drafts/rewrites and posted early chapters before finishing the first draft of the later ones. Sometimes this led to frustrating inability to go back and change things (because I'm VERY reluctant to change anything I've already posted, unless it's to fix spelling/grammar/formatting issues.)

So on to the new method that I'm thinking about:

This method is one that she suggested in general, but just brought up again as part of a "WIP Cleanout", which for her she treats as an annual thing. Basically, triaging any and all incomplete works, and choosing whether to finish them, abandon them, repurpose them, or push to a future cleanout.

The best parts of this drafting process - for her - is that it works, it's fast, and it keeps her from getting bogged down or bored with a work. She also works as a writing coach and as an adjunct English professor, and she's had several students who had similar positive experiences with it.


Hers also assumes an outline to start, whatever form that takes. After that, there are five different levels of completion for a section to be at:
- Skeleton draft - used sparingly, but works to get SOMETHING down for parts of a story that are being difficult
- The "Down Draft" - the starting point for most of the work, enthusiastically embracing the "shitty first draft" concept to write out what's the most efficient or most basic version of what you want to have happen in a scene
- The "Up Draft" - rewriting each "down drafted" scene or chapter into the "good version"; potentially this is a pretty significant rewrite, maybe only keeping a few especially good sentences or bits of dialogue unchanged.
- The "Dental Draft" - can't remember where she said she got the terminology from, but basically, the very fine, line by line cleanup (like a dental cleaning for the work!), making that good version of each scene into a polished version that also flows the way you want with the kind of word choice you want
- "Signed, sealed, and delivered" - the very final version that you'd be happy sharing and/or posting

Now the part that I'm more skeptical of, at least in terms of how it would work for me, is that she does all of the above simultaneously for the whole work. She separates it out by chapter, but chapter 1 may be down drafted, but with chapter 8 she's already done its up draft to clean it up. Meanwhile chapter 12 has a really key scene, so it's already gotten dental drafted and is basically completely done, but chapter 11 has a tricky bit that's still just a skeleton draft, etc. She keeps very meticulous track of where each section is at in the process.

The positive of that, for her, is that it keeps her from getting stuck. If one section isn't working, move on to a different part. If trudging through the crappy first down draft is getting frustrating, do the up draft of a chapter you already got written; if trying to make a scene into something you're truly happy with is difficult, do a super simple skeleton outline of a tricky part; if you're lacking motivation, work on that final polish on a scene that you've already gotten to a point you're pleased with.

I can see the appeal, as I've often gotten bogged down with "ugh, I want to do this in order, but the part I'm at right now suuuuuucks" and then failed to get anywhere for weeks.
At the same time... that sounds like it could get chaotic really quickly. For me, the chance to do the rewrite (the "up draft" in this method) is kind of the reward for making it through the first draft! I could see myself getting bogged down in a completely different way, because I'd rather just keep going back to refine what I have instead of pushing through the rest of the first draft.
This also butts up against why I like to work chronologically. If I go back and refine early parts of the story, but later reach the end and discover that there's something I want to change (because the plot has changed, I want to add in some foreshadowing, I realize that a relationship needs some different buildup, etc.) then I can see winding up having to rewrite things MANY times to incorporate everything I've figured out about the story as a whole.

I'm also very *theoretically* in favor of the shitty first draft, yet struggle with actually doing it! I feel like *someone* is going to wind up looking at it and I'd be embarrassed! (No one is going to see it.)

Of course, there's no rule that says I HAVE to jump around. I could keep those basic levels of drafting, and still do it entirely or mostly chronologically. That's not illegal! In that way it'd be similar to what I already do, with maybe two major differences: first, it's yet again trying to get myself to let myself write a lousy first draft; second, it separates my rewrite/second draft into the "up draft" rewrite and the dental draft to really fix the craft aspects.

Of course, worrying about drafting things is putting the cart before the horse a bit, when I haven't even gotten a strong outline to work from. :)

(I need to go back and reread my chosen fairy tales in preparation for outlining, and I'm dragging my feet very mildly, because I'm trying to spend all my reading time getting through my current book. I need to treat the fairy tale reading like writing time, because it IS writing research, so no reason to feel like I'm cheating on my book, lmao.)

And the only reason I even went back to the post she wrote about her outlining method was because I was interested in the WIP cleanout project. She had a very successful time of it, getting a lot finished up and shared, and I'm jealous! That was what I was trying to spend the first couple months of the year doing! (Though to be fair, mine was mostly not a lot of actual WIPs so much as it was ideas that could become WIPs. I've tried very hard NOT to let myself get bogged down in too many WIPs, so I resist starting things without a strong plan to follow them all the way through.)

Of course, I've settled on a few fics that I'm more interested in working on, even if I didn't really get through my whole categorization and interest check project, so I'm happy enough to focus on that for now.

Comments

[olivermoss]

My edits pretty much have to go in order to get the vibes right and make sure I tuck all the threads away.

If I really want to write something that happens later, or have a really good idea for something later, I write it out and put it in a separate document called Spaghetti, because it's a tangled mess. Later, when I get to that put I open Spaghetti next to it and it if works pretty good I can just copy paste hundreds of words in! If not I take what works and delete what doesn't. This is a weird method, but it works for me.

One problem with always editing from the start is that I get so bored with the first part and sometimes stall out, which compounds my problem with sorting out endings. But if I didn't write/edit front to back I couldn't evolve the story or add things that need payoff. If I was someone who could have a VERY set plan at the start, maybe I could hop around but that is not how I write or develop tone or add humor.

WIP cleanups can be good. I have deleted a lot to get right of mental load. I also stick some in archive folders. Sometimes if I have a strong enough start I can go back with fresh eyes and whack it into shape. Away For The Holidays is a good example of that for me.

[mistressofmuses]

I'm feeling vindicated that you also understand why going in order makes more sense!

The "spaghetti" file is an excellent name for it! I usually call it "bits and pieces" or something like that, or just chuck those random parts in at the end of my outline so I can find them when I want them.

And oh yes, I've definitely run into that issue - where I've reread the beginning SO many times (a mix of editing and of reorienting to continue with the first draft, usually) that I am SO sick of the first chapter or few, lol. But yeah... I feel like the overall story arc/character relationships/character growth/etc. suffers if I don't look at it chronologically.

Maybe a more solid plan from the get-go would make jumping around feel like less of an issue, but... I remain a bit unconvinced! I think my attachment to doing things in order will remain.

I definitely do like the idea of dealing with WIP cleanups. The mental load piece is a big part of it, or the bottleneck of "too much in too many different stages of completion, can't work on any of it!" feeling. I still want to do more with some of the ideas I've had floating around for a while, but I need to get just a handful of things moving before I worry about tackling the rest of the pile, I think.

[olivermoss]

'Spaghetti' works in my mind, but if I ever posted my method I'd have to use another term because in fandom the word is so associated with SPaG that it'd be confusing :) But those later written parts need to stay out of my draft until I get to them. Sometimes I write great stuff and just need to wholesale delete all of it. Also, so much stuff in fanfic spaces is focused on raw word count, that I need it to not count towards my word count until I am sure I am using it. I really need to focus less on my words counts, but it'll be a while until I do.

It's weird to become so familiar with those early chapters and be the only one who's read them!

Yeah, different people have different ways of writing. I can see being a bit more flexible if I had like 10x the experience I do, but I stick with what works.

Having too many WIPs messes with me more than it should. Sometimes it's just free writing as a warm up, like how an artist warms up with sketches. But also the more I get done the more I am able to let go of WIP I'll never come back to... or I might come back to the idea or use it later, but I don't need to hold into that document.

[mistressofmuses]

I haven't seen Spaghetti tied to SPAG in quite a while, haha. I'd forgotten how often it was used in connection!

It's kind of rough how wordcount focused a lot of fandom is. On the one hand, I do get it, because it's a measurable metric, and people love measurable metrics, me included! I keep track of my writing based on how much I write (which means I *do* often count discarded words, because I did still write them, even if I thought better of keeping them.) But I also think there's a really skewed view of what "a lot" of words is. I've seen people talking about how a fic that's "only" 100k words doesn't even count as longfic, when like... that's approaching the upper end of what's considered acceptable for a novel!

And agreed. It is weird to be so familiar - to the point of boredom, if not contempt, lol - with something that no one else has ever read!

Yeah, maybe if I had a lot more experience writing mid-to-long stories, and had a better mental grasp of a very specific outline (at this point in the story, character x feels like this about character y, and this is precisely the point at which subplot b brushes against the main plot...) then it would matter less to me what order I write it in. But I definitely don't feel like that would work for me right now!

I tend to keep all my weird little bits and pieces, because sometimes they can be repurposed for something entirely different than the fic I first thought of them for. It is a very worthwhile skill to feel able to discard an idea that you know isn't going to work, or that you know won't interest you long term. Trying to hold onto EVERYTHING as a "maybe someday..." becomes impossible to sort through to find the things that are worth the time and work!

[olivermoss]

So much writing stuff was focused on just writing words like it was an end in itself. It's not bad to do Word Wars or other stuff, but I was in spaces where it was hugely overfocused on and I def wound up with some hang ups. I tend to write slow, and also my writing tends to be somewhat dense. Scriv giving 'pages of a paperback book' as a wordcount metric is not only validating as hell, but is also a good reality check about how long some of my fics are.

I used to keep my extra bits, but I almost never did anything with them. I did turn one into a separate story, but I also did so right then rather than store it. I have have separate stories grow out of my Spaghetti, but it's usually an obvious branching off that I make into it's own thing right then.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? I understand the allure of an objective metric when writing is so subjective in every other way. It's nice to have a way to measure progress on something. But yeah, I think there's a lot of emphasis placed on wordcount as THE metric, and that more is always better. I'm happy with fewer, better words, but it's still hard to get out of that "the more the better" mindset.
Ooh, I really like that feature for Scrivener - the "how many pages would this be" count. Because I think fandom does have an extremely skewed view. Yes, there are people who write 250k word fics, or series with millions of combined words. That is definitely impressive, but it's definitely not the norm. The idea that someone can look at 80k or 100k and think it's "too short to read; anything less than 250k is rushed" is boggling to me. I mean, people can set their own standards by all means! If you want works of exclusively 250k or more, fandom is probably your place for it, but it's frustrating that it's skewed expectations to such a degree.

I have returned and used some of my extra bits sometimes, but it is usually after the entire idea has morphed into something else than whatever I started with. But a handful of times I've found something that was just what I was looking for when it came to a particular scene, which is a neat feeling when it happens ha.

[olivermoss]

The 'paperback pages' and also excluding some documents from the word count are amazing for me.

I just finished a pro book that was 250 pages, so like 62k exactly. Juuuust squeaked by the word count, lol. But yeah, some of my fics are closer to books than I'd think.

[mistressofmuses]

I love that metric! I look forward to it - Scrivener is high on my list for semi-frivolous purchases when I have a chance.

It's pretty cool to know that you've written stuff that is genuinely novel-length (or close to it.) I think that looking at pure wordcount numbers leads people to forget that really easily. I don't think there's much of anyone who is *great* at looking at a book and guessing the wordcount, or in reverse, seeing a fic's wordcount and intuiting how many pages that would be. Once you DO have an estimate of average words per published page that's easy math, but without knowing that number, I don't think it's something intuitive.

[olivermoss]

I've never been close to novel length, but half novel feels very do-able for some of my current projects if I wanted to restructure them a bit... or more accurately if I just wanted to spend more time on them. My VHS fic could go really long, but I want it doner not longer. Novels always felt like they were so far beyond me, but just working on a project and seeing it's like 70 paperback pages is like 'wow', esp since I consider them not huge projects.

[mistressofmuses]

It's pretty cool to be able to tell "hey, if I was holding this in a physical format it would be a novella or more." And writing multiple things that are long enough to be novellas or half-novels means you're still winding up writing the equivalent of multiple novels which is honestly kind of bonkers. (In a good way, lol.)
But ugh do I feel you on "I want this done-r not longer." The constant tension between "I could really flesh this out into a pretty long work..." vs. "Yeah, but I could not do that and have it be done."

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I might try to go for longer fics as practice but this fandom, for good reason, is allergic to WIPs unless you are a very established author.

[mistressofmuses]

I don't know a lot of the "big" Stranger Things dramas, but I take it there's been a history of abandoned WIPs that has left readers gunshy? That's not terribly surprising, but it's rough to *have* to drop things all in one go!

[olivermoss]

Steddie blew up so much that doing chaptered fic was an easy way to get kudos. A lot of people rushed in and a lot of stuff stalled out. I wish I'd realized other people liked them as a pairing because I missed the first two weeks of the rush when pretty much anything could rack up hundreds if not thousands of kudos. I am not used to pairing I like being popular. I sort of caught wind after the spike had peaked.

And I am also currently working on one of my own stalled out WIPs. I'll feel better once this is done.

[mistressofmuses]

Ah! That makes sense. It's a shame you missed out on that first boom of popularity. It really was kind of a dark horse ship. I can understand WHY it's so well-liked, but it still surprised me the way it took off and how very everywhere it suddenly seemed to be.

Good luck with the stalled WIP! I hope it restarts easily. (And agreed - getting them done is a big relief.)

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I think Eddie and Steddie were both things a lot of people wanted and hadn't really gotten. Honestly, even in this day and age I usually see DMs in shows there to be made fun of.

I have good ground work, so hopefully I'll get this done soon. I'm not going to start posting again until it's 100%, though.

[mistressofmuses]

I think so. He's definitely a character type that people would be primed to love, yet doesn't exist in a lot of media. Because you're right, even in the resurgence of love for DnD, and the popularity of live-play shows and things, mainstream media still does treat it as more of a punchline than anything else.

That's fair! I'm glad you've got a strong foundation to work from. I've discovered I hate posting before I'm all the way done with something, so I support that decision even outside of a fandom that hates WIPs.

[olivermoss]

Not that long ago people were going on and on about how that one Community ep finally gave D&D some good representation in media. I don't know if you've ever watched Community, but I thought the episode was terrible and the implications kinda gross. I liked Community at the the time! I've revised my opinion since then, but for a while I loved that show. Also metalheads who dress like him are still often just either violent, or it's a punchline that they are actually just chill. Between all that and Satanic Panic, the show tapped into a lot of stuff that really hadn't been tapped into in a good way in any media that I've seen.

This is super dates, but when it comes to D&D players on TV shows I always think back to that one X-Files episode who was a punchline, but also people like him also exist in D&D spaces.

[mistressofmuses]

I haven't watched Community, despite having heard for years and years how I absolutely *need* to. I have a feeling I kind of missed the boat on loving it - if I HAD watched it back when it was first being recced to me, I probably would have really liked it, but probably less now.

But yeah, metalheads tend to either be played straight as "edgy, scary, violent" or as a "tee hee, actual fluffball." And whatever, but those characterizations feel flat either way.

It's actually a bit surprising to me that there hasn't been a lot of Satanic Panic stuff explored in media. There've been documentaries and such about all the harm it caused, but there haven't been many good explorations of it, it's true.

I do remember that X-Files episode, ha.

[olivermoss]

Back in the day I was in the 'OMG Community is awesome, you just need to get past the rocky episodes and it's unlike anything...' camp and now I am very 'It's interesting how many people had serious lapses of judgement regarding that show'... and other statements all using passive voice. The XMas specials are still amazing to me, though. I rewatch at least the season 3 one every year.

But yeah the D&D episode pretty much showed it as group therapy for socially maladjusted people, which it can be, actually. But there was a strong implication of 'that's it, that's all there is to this'. I have always hated that episode and been so confused when it's talked up in RPG spaces. Honestly the X Files episodes is more fair to D&D because it shows a guy who just happens to be into it rather than making implications about everyone who likes it. (OT but god I used to love the Darin Morgan episodes of The X Files, but then he wrote what he wrote for the reboot and I can't rewatch them. Ignorance would be bliss)

It is weird that more hasn't tapped into Satanic Panic and so many people don't know it happened. It's like, there are a lot of lessons to learn there about how mass conspiracies die, what the aftermath is like, and how people deny ever having been swept up in it

[mistressofmuses]

I do kind of wish that I understood some of the cultural references that arose from Community, and I know that there were some pretty clever bits to it. But lol at that progression, haha.

Nothing against the idea of D&D as therapy - it can be that, it's great if it serves a purpose like that for someone. But acting like that's all it can be or the only thing that would make it worthwhile? That's frustrating and not exactly the "good rep" that I'd want to see.

Oof, yeah, the reboot X-Files. Moment of silence.

It strikes me as weird how many people *don't* know that the Satanic Panic was a thing. It seems like such a major thing - and WAS a major thing, with lasting impact! - that it's weird that people just have no idea.

[spikedluv]

I like her terms and ideas to quickly get things written down (so you maybe don't forget what you thought might be a really fun bit or something), but I would never be able to do things out of order like that, for the subsequent edits. All in order, baby!

[mistressofmuses]

I am glad that you understand my feeling about working on things chronologically! I just don't think I could do the jumping around thing - I'd be so worried about either straight up messing up the chronology ("wait, DID they already have that conversation? Can he refer back to that having happened?"), or just having inconsistent arcs instead of steady ones. Like, if I want a relationship to move from near-strangers to lovers, then I want there to be a steadily increasing level of emotional intimacy (with potential for ups and downs, but a general trend that way). Jumping around, I'd be afraid of that being too back-and-forth.
And I'm sure almost all of that could be fixed on a subsequent draft, if there were issues like that that cropped up, but that sounds like more, less satisfying work!