How To Write a Novel: The 5 Draft Method

Draft 1 - The Rough Draft

    Draft 1 is exactly what it sounds like, it is a rough draft, and by rough I mean horribly rough. The goal for this draft is not to have a pitch ready manuscript. No, instead all you are doing here is getting the idea you have built up in your head and in your notes out on the paper. Seriously, that is it, no more, no less. It sounds easy, but this will be the hardest draft you will write. Try to write every day, at least 3 pages. This is imperative. Writing every single day. You will need to get into that habit, especially for the first two drafts here. Writing every day will help your story, it will help your brain and you will notice improvements in your writing. Just write. For now we only care that the words are coming out.

     There is a secret to this draft, you ready for it? Okay, the secret is: NOTHING MATTERS. Character names, places, the story itself, side plots, climaxes, plot-line peaks and valleys: none of it matters. All that matters is that the story gets written. Good, bad, ugly, we do not care! I can not stress this enough: Write every day. Some days it will be very, very difficult to write, other days you will write 15 pages without blinking. Good. Write it. Even if you know, for a fact, somewhere in the back of your head that what you are currently writing is a load of crap, write it anyway. Finish the story, beginning to end, get it all out on paper. That’s all there is too it. Don't go back and re-write things you want to change. Don't go back and read each page as you write it. Sit down, start writing and don't think about it until you write “The End”. Once you do write those most favorite of words, Then you can stop and relax and take a break.

     The rough draft for my novel Journal: Decoded, took me 31 hours to get on paper. I did it over the course of 6 days. I wrote 131 pages, or about 36,000 words. That’s not a novel by any means. The minimum for a real, releasable novel is going to be at least 70,000 words. We will discuss all that soon enough. For now, you need to concentrate on getting the story out of your head and onto the paper. That’s it. Your only goal. I don’t care if it takes you nine months and you write 100 pages and when you reread it, it sounds like poop. The story is out, it is readable and you are a writer.

    So let's do a quick recap: Draft 1, the rough draft, the ugly draft, the draft no one will ever see because it is so unexciting and crappy you almost want to throw it away. Don't throw it away. Remember the goals here: concern with nothing; not with grammar, nor spelling, or even formatting. Just words on paper, in sentences and paragraphs. Get the story out of your head and in a readable and editable stance. Once you have it all out of your awesome brain and that blank, white canvas is filled with black ink, you are done with Draft One and ready to move on to Draft Two. Well, almost.

    Almost? I hear you ask. What do you mean almost? I am ready to go! Lets get a move on! C'mon fella, what are you trying to pull? I just finished writing my rough draft and I have so many new and exciting ideas, I need to get them out!

    Well, yes and no. Let me make you one promise right now: Any idea that you currently have for your story that hasn't made it into your roughest of drafts, will either stay with you until it is out and on paper, or isn't worth remembering. Don't believe me? Okay, that's fine. Here is what you do: Get out your idea notebook, or your index cards, or what ever it is you use for your notes, and write them all down. Write enough to remember what they are and how they will go. Then you will see. By the time we get to the point in the 5 Draft Method that you need to go back and look at them, you won't have too. And when you do go look, you will cross most of them out because you already used them and the rest will be crossed out because even though you forgot them before, you now remember and no longer need them. Your brain is very powerful and it knows what needs to be done. You just have to start trusting it.

    So, where does that leave us? Draft 1 is complete. Perfect. Now you take a week off. The pre-Draft Two break.

     Wait, what? Take a week off? Yes! absolutely! You've earned it. I would say take 2 weeks off, but I know you won't. I bet you only make it about three days. But press yourself. Try your hardest, no matter how excited you are or become. Take a week off. Put the notebooks in a drawer. Save and close Word. Don't look at your rough draft even once. Not one peek for an entire week. Longer if you can. This is a very important step and missing it will be devastating in the later drafts. Hear me now and believe me later. Take a week off.

    Once that week off is over, we will start my favorite portion of the drafts: The “Red Pen Edits” (dunnn dunn duuunnnnnnn!). So go now and take your break. When your week is up come back and we will discuss the ins and outs and dos and don'ts or self-editing.