Good morning everyone. I hope you are ready for a fun week. We have completed the section of Tasks for the first and very rough draft. If you managed to compete your draft, take a victory lap. If not, don’t worry, everyone works at their own pace and you can easily dip in and out of these tasks when you need to. I also know some of you finished your draft before time was up and have been waiting for the next phase. Personally I worked over the weekend and have one final scene to write before I can consider my first draft complete. But the Tasks move on, so let’s look at today’s task.
Task #103
Getting the first draft down on paper (or document) is a huge accomplishment. There was a lot of effort done and possibly a lot of research both before and during the writing. There are however things that will often get left out or changed. This week we are going to take a look at those in what I like to call the first read through.
When I am writing I tend to start each day’s writing by reading through the writing from the day before. It gets me in the mindset of the story and I can pick up some obviously glaring errors I might have missed the day prior when I was in the writing zone. While I will occasionally look back through sections of earlier writing if I need to check on a detail of some sort, I don’t read through from the beginning. So some things get missed.
Sometimes that is a misspelled word or a strangely worded sentence that somehow made sense when I was writing it but is confusing when I double back. Other times I will not have noticed that one chapter is really short while another drones on for what needs to be broken into several different chapters. I also have a tendency to shorten conversations into paragraphs when I am working because my brain needs time to figure out exactly what was said. I will write something like… they talked about the situation and after debating their options went with the original plan.
Sometimes I will even highlight the sentence meaning to come back once I have finished whatever else it is I wanted to get down that day and actually add the conversation, sometimes I need more time to think about it and come back to it the following day. And sometimes I forget I meant to come back to it the following day.
Since I end to write fantasy I also sometimes make up words. This particular story ended up having some Latin words in it and it sent spell check into a frothing rage. I will also over use certain words and phrases in a first draft and need to alter my word choice so there isn’t so much repetition.
Perhaps some of these are things that impact your writing, perhaps you have different quirks. Today’s task is to make a list of the things you need to check on in your draft. These could be conversations you condensed that need to be added to. It could be a point you meant to expand. Words you want to check or adjustments you need to make. For example, I started off my manuscript in first person and decided to switch to third instead because it worked better. I am fairly certain I changed all the tenses in the first part, but the first item on my check list is going to be to make certain the tenses all match.
My list may not match your list. If this is your first draft of your first novel, you may not know what particular things slip in when you are writing. In that case, think about the general shape of a book. I’ve added an example list here and will put my list in the my task section.
Today’s task is to make the list of things you need to double check when you start reading through your manuscript.
Task #103: Example Check list
- Spelling of strange words
- Chapter breaks
- long or confusing sentences
- Names, both consistent spelling and placement (is the right person named in the right place)
- repeating words
- Time
- Did you try to cram so much into one day that your character had a mysteriously 28hour long Tuesday?
- When talking about your characters experience did you take into account their age? If Bob Graduated from University, then worked in place x for five years before spending 12 years in place Y all before the story starts then unless you explain some extenuating circumstances Bob can’t be 22 years old.
- Seasonality – did you start your story on a cold winter’s day with freezing winds but two pages in have your protagonist inhale the scent of spring flowers?
- General read through of plot elements. Make sure they are in the order you want them to be in.
- general readability of the text to make sure there aren’t any glaring gaps
These are just a few basic things to put on your list, yours can be as detailed as you want but remember, this is just for your first read through. This isn’t a final edit, this is just the first time you have eyes on the manuscript as a whole. So make the list and prepare to read.
Ten til Midnight 