How do you all prepare your first draft? When I was writing my first novel I would write each chapter longhand, then type it up (editing as I went), edit it a bit more then move on to the next chapter. I ended up rewriting the first five chapters numerous times before I'd even finished the rest. Then I edited the whole thing, got bored, got a few rejections, gave up on the idea.
Now I'm preparing to begin my second and I'm wondering, do I write the first draft entirely in my notebook before I try to type it up? Would I avoid my internal editor this way? Any ideas?

Probably won't check this much over the weekend but be online Monday.

Have a good weekend.

Gina.

Gina, I used your second plan on three novels, then went back to your first, because I was doing a Masters, and had to get chapters slightly licked into shape to be worth workshopping them. But I did try not to pick at past work, and only have one editing session before the workshop, and one afterwards, before moving on. FWIW, I'm planning to stick to that for the next one as it's part of my (hoped-for) PhD.

The all-in-one method does give you a very good sense of the overall shape and pace, the chapter-by-chapter perhaps sorts out problems better as they arise, so you don't go too far down a wrong turning before you realise. I don't think it made much difference in the end, except that typing up the whole bloody novel at once gave me RSI and did my neck in from reading the MS - I had to get a copy holder in the end.

Emma

I think through my initial idea and write a loose outline of the story - so at least I know it has an end! Then I break it down, again loosely, into scene by scene or chapter by chapter - I'm using the Writers Cafe software for the current book and it works well. Then, I'll write the first draft based on my outline but will not go back and re-read or edit any of it until the first draft is finished. I find I get distracted from telling the story unless I blurt the whole thing out first!
Sue

Thanks for the replies. I think I might try and write the whole thing, at least if I get the whole story down it might flow, I got so confused last time editing while writing.

Gina.

I’m just starting a sequel to TWH. For a change, this time I’m trying to work out the plot in advance, rather than winging it. However, if I think of a scene or piece of dialogue, I write it while it’s fresh in my mind.

When I come back to it the next time, I read through the latest bit and may do a bit of tweaking, but no serious editing. Then, if I feel inspired, I’ll keep writing. If not, I move on to another scene.

I am making an effort though, to not edit the first draft too early.

Dee

I find that so far, I've done every book differently. The first one, years ago, I started somewhere in the middle and wrote around it. As a result the plot was all over the place. Now I tend to write in a much more linear fashion, although I will be visualising scenes in later chapters and perhaps sketching out what they contain in my notebook, as I write the earlier chapters. For the current book, I've not done an awful lot of planning - I had a general idea of how it should end up, but that's actually changed now that I'm half way through, and as one of the characters is playing much less of a part than I had anticipated. I'm currently at the stage where I start to panic that I'm not going to have enough material to complete the book to a decent length. So far (touch wood) I've never had any problems.

I write the whole thing on the computer, each chapter as a separate file. I give chapters a rough edit as I go along, just to make sure they at least make sense when I read them back.

Cas

Ooh this is a good question.

My first, and so far, only completed first draft started out as an idea, a premise, that germinated in my mind until I couldn’t ignore it any more. I wrote the first thirty thousand words as they came to me, it was a bit like vomiting really only more pleasant. It was then I understood that I was actually writing a multivolume story, so I knew I had to start planning. So then I wrote a chapter map, bullet pointed the key things for each chapter, then shuffled things around to get the continuity and the cliff-hangers in the right places.

Then I wrote the scenes that suited at the time, when the inspiration was at its hottest. Later I stitched them all together. I did a little tampering as I went along, but not much. Then when I finally finished I left it alone for a while. Later, I edited the whole thing with a red biro, from start to finish and chopped out about thirty-five thousand words.

That’s pretty much how it happened.

Grinder

I'll go along with what Dee said. I only edit in a very cursory manner to begin with, as I think it's important to unleash your imagination on full flow, without too much technical hiccup.

I also edit seriously once I have the whole cloth. That way, as said above, you can kniow the overall shape of the book and balance it accordingly.

JB

Thanks for all the comments, interesting to see the common thread through them all seems to be to get the whole story out, then think about editing.

I think the trouble with my method last time was the constant switching between writing and editing as I did each chapter. I got confused, made changes halfway through, lost the subplot, rewrote the beginning before I'd even got to the end. To be honest the novel is not really finished, I gave up on the last edit, it was too much of a mess.

Now I don't think that novel will ever see the light of day, the computer it was on has crashed big time so I think it might be lost. Oh well, you live and learn, do not put off doing backups, backup your work now. If that was a good novel I would be devastated right now.

Ok back to planning, working out the basic plotline and subplot at the moment I'm hoping to start the first draft in a couple of weeks.

Gina.

Oh, Gina, bad luck with the computer! In the days when you couldn't keep a whole novel on your hard disk, and had to load in the chapters you wanted off a floppy, I lost a third of a novel once - the best and most recent third - and didn't get back to it for about a year. The good news was, it was much better when I did finish it, and it made me buy a zip drive, and backup properly. The bad news was, it was irredeemably broken-backed for ever.

A propos writing versus editing, have you come across the thread about Morning Pages? In that one, people including me keep going on about Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer. She is (was? It was written in 1934) wonderfully clear about how they are two different mind-sets, and how to engage the one you want and shut the other one up. It was reading that that got me into the first-furious-draft-straight-through method, and many other people too, it seems.

Good luck!

Emma

Hooray! Computer is not completely knackered, Dell support got it wrong. It's being fixed as I speak so should be back up and running at home tonight (so lucky I've got internet access from work!).

First thing I will do is back-up all the files, we nearly lost all our digital photo's.

I think I'm going to have to get a copy of that book, it's mentioned so much on this site. I'm off to Liverpool on business next week, think I'll take it to read in my hotel room.

Cheers,

Gina.