Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:57:38 +0100

Want to join a club (well, thread...) The rules: 1. You must be working on draft two of your novel be it world building, character sketching, plotting, writing, editing, cover design or whatever else. 2. Post your weekly, fortnightly, or monthly goal. 3. Respond when you have reached said goal. 4. Give encouragement to others who post their goals/ shoutouts. So, who's with me? My goal is to be done with an outline for draft two by the end of the month (hopefully by X-mas).

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Heresy — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:56:35 +0100

Okay, I'll jump in here. I've been rewriting my outline and doing a little more world-building since the day after I finished draft one, when I realized something major and fundamental was not as I had originally assumed. A couple of nights ago, I committed on my blog to a new round of 30 days of writing. It was supposed to start today, but I was unable to restrain myself that long and started last night. I got 3067 words in, despite a very late start, so it was a good start :) My 30 day goal is 75k (entirely reasonable and eminently beatable if I commit like I did during nano), which gives me a daily pace number of 2500 words. I'll be reporting on my blog about it every two or three days, as I did during nano, but I'll try to come in here and toss in an update periodically, in addition to that. I have to say, 3k in, I'm much happier with the story, and how the things I learned from the first draft about the craft are expressing themselves. Gives me even higher hopes for my next project, but one thing at a time. Draft two of Dark Mirror first.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:00:29 +0100

Excellent! I debated doing a total re-draft of my story as well. But I decided to re-outline first, as about 20-50% of what I wrote is salvageable. That said, I'll probably end up re-writing everything, anyway... First step: finish outlining. I applaud your effort! Sounds like you are off to a great start. Second drafts are the toughest, I think (I normally do 3-4 total). It's hard to think you have to start practically over (or actually over, in your case) after spending X number of hours beating out a first draft. And then there is the added pressure of making the second draft better than the first (which in my case is both easy and hard- easy because my first draft sucks, hard because lots of things must be cut, heavily edited or replaced.) But finishing draft two sends me into a near manic state, so there is always that giddiness to look forward to and keep me going. Good luck on the re-write!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Heresy — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 06:51:07 +0100

My second draft is going to be so different from the first that there likely won't be much way to compare the two. The change I mentioned was so fundamental that none of the old manuscript is being reused. That said, I learned enough from writing it that I don't feel like it was a waste of time at least. I did re-outline, which I finished a few days ago, left it for a day and the read it through to see if it still seemed fairly solid, which it did. The re-outline is also helping to keep me encouraged, as it already feels like this is a way better version of the story than the first draft, and I haven't quite completed my first chapter yet (disclaimer here - I write really long chapters). Good luck to you as well on your rewrite. I suspect that, post-Christmas, we may have more company in this thread, but I have no life, really, so I needed this to keep me occupied over the holidays. Besides, I prefer to keep going while I'm enthusiastic and still in the vein of the story.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Notkieran — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 07:48:20 +0100

Draft 2.0 for me is going to consist, mainly, of laying the groundwork in the earlier parts of the novel so that certain important parts in the latter portions don't just jump out of nowhere. It will also involve me titling and (weakly) themeing each chapter. Expected completion date: mid-january.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

quixotic_hope — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:00:45 +0100

I've reread my novel and have made my first round of deletions/additions. Really, I've only expanded like two scenes. Otherwise I was just deleting everything that I didn't think added anything. My novel dropped from 103k to just under 80k. It's sort of crazy. Right now, I'm trying to re-outline. My novel sort of changed while I was writing it and turned into more of a rant about my current job and less about the struggle to find a job, which is what it was supposed to be about. Ideally, I would have finished draft 2 this month in time for me to write something new for JanNo, but I'm doubting that's going to happen. I think I'm going to end up having to rewrite my entire novel. I had hoped to save some - and I still might be able to - but either way, I'm going to have to rewrite way more than I originally thought I would. My goal: have a finished draft 2 by the end of January. That's 46 days to figure out where I want my novel to go and rewrite it. It's doable. I just need to focus.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Carolf — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:25:43 +0100

I'm not sure if I'm working on draft 2.0 or not. I did a read through of the draft. Found lots of things to change or develop, but nothing that's a major change to the outline or plot. Enough that I'll need to do another read through when I'm done. Does that mean I'm working on 2.0, or 1.2? Either way, I want to have the thing in my first reader's hands by end January at the latest, preferably mid-January if possible.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Demagis — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 22:21:28 +0100

Editing draft 2 of my JuneMo novel. I did all the heavy thinking back in August or Sept, including a detailed scene outline, so all I have to do now is rewrite the damn thing. I am trying to do a scene a day, and I am managing that about four days a week. After this draft is done, there'll be another edit where I'll mostly just be looking at the voice of the POV, and then one last one for grammar, etc.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:08:24 +0100

@ Carolf Sounds to me like it's a Draft 2, just a really polished and ready to go draft two! I can usually produce a great first draft for short stories, but I have yet to produce an even semi-readable novel in 1 draft. I tend to think of my drafts in terms of writing a paper. There is pre-writing: outlinging, character sketches, worldbuilding, research, etc that is done usually before and/or after the first draft. Then draft one: a rough draft that resembles a final product in that it has a beginning, middle and end (but is not written very well, probably doesn't have compelling characters or interesting side plots.) Draft two/ Fix it draft: For this draft my goal is to produce a product that I would not be embarrassed to let other people read. It is Draft 1.0 but better. Often, for me, characters change, plot lines are added/ taken away. Draft three/ edited draft: this is the draft that happens after I put on my editing cap. I look at grammar, I look at sentence structure, I look at pacing. I often get a few people to read it and give their opinions. If I do a really good job, this is my final draft (but often I have to do 1 more, taking in my Beta-readers thoughts/ suggestions) Draft four/ final draft: This is the draft where I make finishing touches. If I feel, after this draft, that more work needs to be done, I stop working on the project (to give myself space and distance from it- then go on to draft 5 (which is often draft 2.0 all over again- with major revisions...)) But that is just me. You can call/ number your drafts whatever you want!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Loki Laughs — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:19:47 +0100

I'm working on draft 2 of last year's NaNo. I hope to have the outline and redone character sheets complete by new years, and start on the rewriting in January.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

RobertLent — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:07:46 +0100

I went in and fixed obvious typos, the ones that appear in red in the word processor. Then I read the book myself on my e-reader, making note of things like incorrect word choice, and awkward phrasing. Then I went through and made sure all the characters had names - many only had placeholder names. That reminds me, I have a few names I need to change. I have generic names for them, that are a descriptive English name. I want to translate those names into Latin. For example, one character is named "Middle" because he is in the middle. That looks stupid in English, but might look good translated. And someone who knew Latin might be in on the Joke. But other than that, I think I am ready to let some friends read it. I'm a little nervous, because I'm going to get one shot at this, I'm not likely to get them to read it a second time, so I want to get it as good as I can before I hand it to them. Hopefully, I can get some useful feedback.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

FranOnTheEdge — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:10:33 +0100

I like the sound of this place - I missed NaNoWrMo - but that's okay, as I already have a 69K novel to work on. What I'm not sure of, is exactly how to do this stage of the editing. I have no problem with the line by line editing, spellchecking, changing a sentence or two, improving the grammar of a sentence, little things like that. It's the big stuff I'm not so sure of. I know there are sections I have that are pretty much just exposition, and those I can expand into proper scenes. At least I hope so. But I have a nasty fear that actually it's the whole thing needs something doing to it. But I've no idea what that might be. I liked the look of the Mystery section - but I haven't had any replies to anything I've said in here... not in any section. Has everybody gone home? Or do we just not get email alerts for threads we've contributed to? Just in case it's the second thing, (strange though that sounds, surely I can't be that??) I'll keep this tab open. Oh, and I liked the mystery section because I'm writing in that genre and they all sounded so like me it felt like I'd come home.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

quixotic_hope — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:44:45 +0100

FranOnTheEdge: If you're talking about the notification digest thing, I'm still getting it. It's just not every day, I don't think. If you're talking about RSS feeds (which I have sent to Outlook, which is what made me think of it), I haven't gotten any updates since NaNo ended. That said, I often didn't get updates during NaNo, either, so that might just be a problem with my computer/Internet. What I usually do is go through scene by scene (or chapter by chapter) and write out everything. Then I mark them all as either "keep," "delete," or "edit." Then I also have another page/file where I keep a list of everything from the deleted sections that I need to include elsewhere. For example, in draft one of my novel last year, my character lived in a house with her friend. In the second draft I changed it so that she lived at the inn she worked at, so I needed to make a note to include the description of the town (which we originally got on her way to work) somewhere else. If 90 percent of your scenes are marked for delete, you should just rewrite the whole thing. That's what I usually do anyway. If most of it is edit/keep, you can probably stick with what you have and tweak it a little. Look at the list you made and figure out if you like the order of the story. Are there too many characters? Too few? I would just keep reading it and your notes until you can figure out what exactly you don't like about it. That's the most important part, in my opinion. Good luck!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ohthatmomagain — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:37:06 +0100

I'm on draft 2.0. I just finished re-writing 20,000/60,000 words. My goal is to be finished with this draft by the end of January, then go through and do another hard copy edit, then another computer edit (only not completely re-written like this one). I'd love LOVE to start quering by the end of Feb or early March, but that might be pushing it a bit.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Heresy — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:32:12 +0100

Okay, i said I'd be back and report, and I haven't yet, but I have the best excuse for it. Been busy writing. See? Told you. I haven't gotten much done tonight yet (The night is young yet) but I hit 25,819 last night for the rewrite, so it's going well. Better storytelling too, so I'm very cautiously optimistic about the draft I'll have when I'm done. Not sure yet how long it will be when I'm done, but the first draft was 107k when finished, and I'm hoping to land in that vicinity when done.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 11:27:29 +0100

Congradulations! I'm doing.... Well I have my synopsis written, but haven't started my outline yet. I came down with a Christmas Cold an am busy feeling sorry for nyself.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Demagis — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 18:01:31 +0100

Update: I'm at just over 20K on draft 2.0. All this holiday stuff is destroying my productivity. And I think I just wrote a scene I'll need to completely cut out. ugh...but progress is being made.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

FranOnTheEdge — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:38:12 +0100

[quote=quixotic_hope] FranOnTheEdge: /////What I usually do is go through scene by scene (or chapter by chapter) and write out everything. Then I mark them all as either "keep," "delete," or "edit." ////////[/quote] Oh yes? I just put edits in 'Comments' in Word2003 – and I work through those removing each Comments field as I go. I also put it through yWriter5 which gave me a scene by scene sysopsis – now THAT's invaluable because it enables you to see at a glance what's in each scene without having to re-read the entire MSS each time (– IF you've created suitable scene descriptions.) [quote]If 90 percent of your scenes are marked for delete, you should just rewrite the whole thing. [/quote] I very, very rarely have entire scenes I want to delete! Re-write yes, delete no. But I've never tried to write a novel in just a month. I find it hard to believe how a novel written so fast could be any good. It would be really nice to be proved wrong though. [quote] That's what I usually do anyway. If most of it is edit/keep, you can probably stick with what you have and tweak it a little. Look at the list you made and figure out if you like the order of the story. [/quote] I can see that it MIGHT be possible to change the order of clues, but in a whodunnit one thing leads to another – so there it's not so easy. Unless you use flashbacks. Otherwise I've never really understood this often mentioned changing the order idea. [quote] Are there too many characters? Too few? I would just keep reading it and your notes until you can figure out what exactly you don't like about it. That's the most important part, in my opinion. Good luck! [/quote] I'm not sure – is 31 too few? I'd rather increase some chars parts rather than add chars. I'm not sure what I don't like about it.... I'm not sure what counts as a hook, and what's interesting to me might not be to anyone else.... THAT'S what worries me.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

quixotic_hope — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 05:16:20 +0100

[quote=FranOnTheEdge] But I've never tried to write a novel in just a month. I find it hard to believe how a novel written so fast could be any good. It would be really nice to be proved wrong though. [/quote] If you don't think you can write anything worthwhile in a month...why did you sign up for NaNo? I have issues writing decent first drafts. I outline, but I often find it hard to stick to what I planned, or I didn't plan as well as I thought I had, so my first drafts end up more as elaborate outlines than anything else. That said, I've written a second draft of a novel in a month, and I really liked what I ended up with. It needs editing, of course, but that was fixing a few scenes rather than figuring out where I want to go with the novel.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Carolf — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:54:59 +0100

[quote=FranOnTheEdge] [quote] That's what I usually do anyway. If most of it is edit/keep, you can probably stick with what you have and tweak it a little. Look at the list you made and figure out if you like the order of the story. [/quote] I can see that it MIGHT be possible to change the order of clues, but in a whodunnit one thing leads to another – so there it's not so easy. Unless you use flashbacks. Otherwise I've never really understood this often mentioned changing the order idea. [quote] I can see where you might think that, but I was surprised -- I ended up changing the order of some of my scenes in a mystery. It's not about the chronology of the clues as they actually happened as much as it's about when the reader should find out about it. What I, as the writer, know is different from what my readers know.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Carolf — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:55:40 +0100

Well, I messed up the quotes, but I hope my message came through, nonetheless.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Dawnheart — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:55:14 +0100

i would like to have a new character (he's already a character but he has no personality and is so boring but he is important, later in the series) and i need to make him interesting but i have no idea how to ........i need to think of secrets that he can have!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Dawnheart — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:57:20 +0100

that's an excellent goal! (i don't think i could do that, haha) how is your setting building going? is it a lot clearer now? what was the problem before: not enough details/not a clear picture, or something?

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Mell — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:56:33 +0100

I'm struggling with my Draft 2.0 so I'm going to post here to get motivated. I'm rewriting last year's nanovel completely. I love that story and those characters but it is so badly written that there's almost nothing I can save, so I decided to rewrite it entirely using the first draft as a guide. I also need to add new scenes that I've thought of, cut out some scenes, add in a few characters, think of a better ending, etc. As of now, my draft 2 has 411 words. I hope I can finish it before January 26, when I'm travelling to Italy. Good to you all with your goals!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Christina Huling — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:51:44 +0100

Um, I'm not sure if I count, exactly, but I want in on the post-NaNo motivation/commitment. Why I'm not sure if I count: my NaNovel, quite honestly, is lame and sucks. The idea is okay, I think, but I don't think it's any good, and I mean beyond the inherent suckishness of a first draft. It was a giant step outside my comfort zone in writing and I'm proud of that. But... I'm scrapping the whole thing and starting over with only a 472-word semi-related dream. The main character dreamed she was talking to her dead boyfriend. And I can't stop thinking how cool it would be if that had actually happened, and she could actually talk to her dead boyfriend while she was dreaming. I feel a little bad about ignoring the 50,000+ words I wrote, but I feel really good about pulling my characters back into my usual speculative fiction. I'm hoping the fourth total rework of the plot of these characters (NaNo was the third) will be the winning one. Anyway, my goal is to get an outline hashed out by the end of Christmas break (Jan. 2nd).

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Telcontar — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 23:09:07 +0100

Ahh, I definitely need a club like this! I've had a number of unsuccessful editing attempts in the past. This one is starting off on a very nice foot, but I know the only way I'll actually get through it will be by the support of wonderful other writers like all of you :). My plot was fairly solid this year, and though my characters have fairly solid foundations, they didn't show through in the prose as well as I'd hoped. So, I'm going one page at a time, cutting the poor parts and elaborating where necessary (which is most places, as I reached 50k only by breezing over anything that was too hard to write at the time). My goal is to have draft 2 finished in early March, and only then will I send it out to my trusted friends for a nice solid outside-eye critique. Hopefully, they won't find any major plot holes or demand massive re-writes, because I'd like to have a third draft based on their reviews done by late may or early June. Then I'll order my proof copy from CreateSpace! If the proof copy looks ok, I will probably self-publish. I like this book a lot, but I don't think it's very marketable to a professional publisher, so I'll just use it as a resume booster :)

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Heresy — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:40:15 +0100

Redrafting is just another way of doing draft 2.0, so you definitely count. Lol, I totally understand how you feeling about tossing that first draft. I cringed and flinched a lot as I decided to file away the first draft of mine (107k), but at 53k words now for the new draft, I have to say it was the best decision I have made. I think this draft is way better. I've been so engrossed in writing it, even though I'm actually going at an even more bruising pace than NaNo, that the words are flowing by. The few parts I've been rereading, while looking for a particular reference or detail, have been pretty good, though obviously in need of polishing. (There, that's my update for the thread too) I also had to re-outline, which I did in the second week of December (I don't seem to have an off-switch for my writing), which is why I was able to dive into writing the new draft on Dec 15. Okay, I hear my netbook calling, must get back at it.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

FreakierThanThou — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 07:24:41 +0100

I'm really loving my original draft, but it needs fixing. For one, I wrote it in Spanish (not my first language) because I wanted to practice and thought that this wasn't going to come to anything. It surprised me. Now I need to translate it into English for editing to kick out Draft 2.0. Unless I have a sudden burst of way more free time than I expect (full-time student two part time jobs should be using my winter break better blah blah blah), Draft 2.0 is probably getting the proof copy and may be sent out to friends and family. I might make Draft 3.0 with margin notes in my proof copy and their comments. We'll see. For now my immediate goal is to have full editing up to the point of the characters all meeting (including a complete rewrite of the king's introduction sequence in chapters one and three) by January. I have the prologue and chapter 2 done, so I don't have much further to go.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Heresy — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 08:24:14 +0100

Thanks. So far, I have a clearer idea of the society they live in, partly because the new story forces them to interact with it more than my first draft. I also have a better idea of how magic actually works in this world, instead of just saying something lame like "They do magic and the tree moves" (not an actual line from my first draft). I use world-building in a broader sense, meaning more than just the physical world they're in. It includes a lot of other stuff. I think the biggest change is that my characters are more vivid and real to me, and their choices and motives are driving the story, instead of me doing it on whim. That was probably my biggest problem with the first draft, the story being a little too passive. Also, I didn't spend nearly enough time preparing. I decided to do NaNo about 7 days before it started, and had only been seriously working on the story idea for a few days at that point. So, all in all, 54,288 words in (current total), it's a much much better draft. And to be honest, that's why I did it, both the throwing out of my old draft and the new 30 days of writing goal. I'm finding that, as a writer, I need that daily goal to keep me moving forward, to get me sitting in front of my netbook and pounding away at the keyboard. It's an important thing to know about myself.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Carolf — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:15:41 +0100

I'm currently struggling with my MC. I realized, as I worked through some rewrites, that he has no main conflict. Oh, lots happens to him -- he is single-handedly exposing a major corrupt financial syndicate while on the lam from said syndicate. The plot part is fine. It's that he doesn't really change a lot. Or at least, I haven't shown it well enough. In my mind, he changes a good deal. He learns much from his experience, and ends it a different, more mature person than he started. But I need to make that clearer. I think I need to beef up the scene where he makes the one choice that irrevocably puts him in the path of the syndicate. it's when he puts his skin in the game, and it needs to be stronger. Yep. Thanks for letting me think out loud.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Telcontar — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:55:29 +0100

So my goal for Sunday the first of January is to have the first ten pages of the original draft edited and semi-polished (which at the rate I'm going will be about 16 pages of edited draft). I'm not sure how long that page-by-page method will be feasible, but it seems to be working quite well for now. It's challenging though. Sure, I can knock out a good three or four pages a day during NaNo no problem, but it does take me a lot more time when I'm begining to agonize over structure and prose. I'll be back on Sunday or sooner to update! :)

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Telcontar — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:58:16 +0100

Ah, I know the feeling. My MC, Eschen, finds his footing after a while, but for the first few chapters he's just not what I want him to be. And you know what they say about first impressions. In my case however, I don't think it will take too much major restructuring. Just some slightly more thoughtful word choices. Best of luck! I think restructuring characters may be the hardest problem to solve - usually even harder than plot holes IMO.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

paythepiper — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 22:45:14 +0100

I've decided my first attempt at approaching this revision process is going to be checking the plot structure and writing things in as needed to make the whole plot more sound. I'm doing my best to not focus on sentence structure and word choice on the first revision. (Although going back and looking at my plot-revised first chapter I was unable to resist more editing. D'oh.) I'm doing it chapter by chapter, which I'm not sure is a good or bad idea. My second chapter isn't the strongest, and I'm torn on whether I should add more chapters throughout the story with alternating points of view to show more facets of the plot and world I'm writing in. Anyway, I hope to get the second chapter cleaned up today and the third by the end of the week.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Demagis — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:27:10 +0100

Finally hit 25K. Don't know if I'm halfway done yet but progress is being made. I've somehow manged to make my MC's life even more miserable this time around. It's a good sign.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:29:22 +0100

Ugh, I'm still fighting a head cold and have done ZERO work on my draft for the past two weeks. Still hoping to have an outline by the end of the month. Need to hop to it.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Christina Huling — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:40:16 +0100

My update: I've spent all evening figuring out how my plot makes any logical sense, and I think I've managed to come up with reasonable explanations for everything. Soon I will be writing a more solid, whole outline, although my outlines have a funny tendency to fly out the window once I get started because my characters have other ideas. Side note: can I get an opinion on whether "para" is an acceptable abbreviation/shortening of paranormal? I've got a society of them and "Paranormals" is a bit of a mouthful for their name. Is Para good or would the plural (Paras) make you think of paras:

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Christina Huling — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:45:22 +0100

Argh, image fail. New attempt:

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Christina Huling — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:45:59 +0100

You know what, I give up on cool HTML formatting. http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&source=mog&hl=en&gl=us&client=safari&q=paras&sa=N&biw=480&bih=208#p=0

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

PeverellSister — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:10:22 +0100

Hi! I'm currently rereading and making notes on my first draft. There are some parts that ended up a lot better than I thought, and some that turned out downright horrible. I'm cutting a lot of the boring walking and talking out of it, but I also have to add two new scenes for the story to make any sense. And I'm thinking of completely reworking my climax. Or if not completely reworking it, than at least making some major changes. And I want to get this reread done by the end of Christmas Holiday. So I have until January 2. Oh boy!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Christina Huling — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:55:37 +0100

I think I see my mistake. Yes! Success at last!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Kelly The Red — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:30:13 +0100

I started with an outline and pretty much followed it, so I feel like I am one step ahead in the rewriting this time. But whenever I got to a part where I was stuck (read: didn't feel like writing at the time) I typed "Then some stuff happened" and continued. I just finished filling in all the "Stuff" yesterday. My goal is to read the whole thing through along with two of my readers over the next week. Then make any major changes by the end of January. I already know I need to move the "yellow suitcase" scene later in the novel and maybe move the explosion earlier. After that I aim to do a chapter by chapter clean up with the minor changes. Ideally that will be one chapter every two weeks. I tend to write fairly long chapters of about 2000 to 2500 words each. I hate it when a chapter takes only one or two pages and a book has 30+ chapters. I just read a book that had 67 chapters. It really makes it hard to get into the book. I finished rewrite #3 of last year's Nano on oct 31 so I am fine-tuning that one as well. One is sci-fi/fantasy and the other is chick lit so I hope I don't accidentally have a dragon swoop in and melt a cell phone or something.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Kelly The Red — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:31:53 +0100

Not planning on going to any New Year's Eve parties? Going to spend the time with your book? Good one. Us wordsmiths have our priorities. :)

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Kelly The Red — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:35:30 +0100

Be careful you don't spill chicken soup on your computer. Get over the cold first. It is hard enough to write, but when your brain is stuffy, feverish and not working at maximum efficiency it is even harder.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:15:58 +0100

Para works, methinks.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

paythepiper — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:26:15 +0100

Woot! I finished editing chapter 3 (and one bored coworker-cum-betareader says it needs a better transition, so it may in fact become chapter 4 eventually) and I'm halfway through chapter 4, which is much shorter than I remember it being in my mind. So I'm filling out the things that never quite made it to the page and rewriting a lot of the dialog. I'm throwing a big bash this weekend so I hope to finish 4 tomorrow. I keep telling myself I need to focus on plot and making each scene work for my overall story, not "detail" things like word choice but it's ever so hard. My goal is to have the structural/plot edits done sometime in January. After that I'll show it to three to five beta readers and use their feedback to make any important changes to my plot and scene structure. Then, it's print out time and colored pens and OH GOD WHAT WAS I THINKING reading out loud time. So er... I hope to have a mostly-polished draft by the end of February!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Heresy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:06:45 +0100

I'm done my redraft, finished last night. It came in around 74k, which surprised me. More happened but it's shorter. Hmm. I'm going to read through it tonight or tomorrow and see what I think. That will decide next steps

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:39:08 +0100

**Cheers** Congradulations! That is awesome! From my outlining work it looks like I will be cutting out greater than 50% of my first draft, and am thinking I might just rewrite the whole thing. Glad to here your Rewrite was sucessful- it gives me hope.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

quixotic_hope — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:57:20 +0100

I've been working on reading through one of the novels I finished this year. I'm not going to work on the sequel until Camp NaNo, but I had a huge plot issue I wanted to have figured out before then. I think I'm just about done with that one. though, which is exciting. I have the feeling that I will be working on two novels in January instead of one.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Demagis — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:03:35 +0100

Just hit 30k. It wanted to be at 50k by the end of the month but...that didn't happen. I can take my time in January now, I guess. Maybe do a few quick passes over it once I'm done the re-write.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

RobertLent — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:34:13 +0100

I've given my book to my sister and a friend, and they say they will read it, but I don't know if they actually will. My wife will read mine, but I want to wait until someone else reads it. My reasoning is that she will only read it once, so if I can have some other people read it I can make changes, and let her read the next draft. Getting people to say they will read it is one thing, getting them to actually read it is another. I'm not looking for people to just tell me it is good, I need some constructive criticism so I can make it better.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Telcontar — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:22:14 +0100

Didn't make it to page ten, but I did finished chapter one. In light of this, I am altering my approach. New strategy: 1 chapter per week. This will put me in at late March if I don't have any chapters to add.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

RobertLent — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:31:52 +0100

I have a couple people who said they would read my book, and I put copies on their e-readers. I don't know if they will ever read them. I know friends and family aren't the most helpful readers, they are too likely to tell you that it is good rather than giving useful feedback, but still, a reader is a reader. But a reader who says they will read it but doesn't isn't a reader at all. I'm too close to the book to really see where it needs some improvements.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Demagis — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:10:22 +0100

Just hit 33k and have gone through eighteen of my thirty scenes. Getting there slowly.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Loki Laughs — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:21:36 +0100

I finished the outlines for my A and B plots, now just need to finish up the C plot and weave the three together. Of course, a wild plot bunny for a sequel took that exact moment to jump into my brain, but I will persevere.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

paythepiper — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:36:19 +0100

I'm on chapter 5 now and I'm thinking that once this is over I'm going to make a list of scenes and see where I need to add more story to bridge those scenes and flesh out the plot. I hope to be done with chapter 5 by tomorrow night and from there, sorting out how many scenes there are and what needs to be added or taken away to make a better story. I still hope to be done with my plot-restructuring draft by the end of January and the copyedited/language arting draft by the end of February.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

KaelynAngelfoot — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:17:03 +0100

I finally bit the bullet and starting rewriting the first few chapters of my book. I revised the plot in December but have been fighting the rewrite. Last night I completed the rewrite of Chapter 1 and started on Chapter 2 so I'm very proud of myself. I'm back up to more than 50k words after archiving the first few chapters, which dropped me down to 46k. Some of that is plot outlines that are located at the beginning of each chapter and will be removed when I go to edit but that's okay. I hope to finish rewriting chapter 2 this week.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Demagis — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:50:19 +0100

Just hit 37k, on to scene twenty-two of maybe thirty. Taking so long...

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Telcontar — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:03:16 +0100

Okay, now I'm falling way behind my goals. I've gotten very very stuck, not exactly with what's happening now, but with something that happens closer to the end which I know needs to be established now. I can't figure out how to work it in without it being just a tangent. I think I took a step in the right direction yesterday, but this is definitely messier than I thought.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Demagis — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:43:51 +0100

48k and change. Four scenes left. I feel like my brain is going to melt out of my ear.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

PeverellSister — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:35:29 +0100

Lol, no I actually didn't get any rereading done on New Years Eve. I did it all on New Years Day, but I did almost get it done.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Demagis — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:56:12 +0100

53k, and the second draft rewrite is done. Now I just have to go through it again for voice, grammar and punctuation and it's back to my beta readers.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Our Mrs. Reynolds — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:55:21 +0100

Why don't you just stick it in as you need to now, then carry on. If you haven't thought of a better way to do it by the end of your 2nd draft, start your 3rd draft with this as your focus. Once you've written it, it may be easier to see how to improve it, if that makes sense.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Our Mrs. Reynolds — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:15:40 +0100

This is vaguely my plan, so I'm glad it's a tried and true formula. Hope it goes well for you!

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:01:02 +0100

Congrats for everyone who has completed draft 2!!! I have, if more than a bit off schedule, finished the synopsis/ outline for my second draft and am just about to start writing. *fingers crossed* I'm hoping to finish this draft in 3-4 weeks with a final deadline of February 29th.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

quixotic_hope — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:50:07 +0100

Good luck! My draft is currently at 62k, and I have about 8 months of story left to write. I really want to finish this by the end of the month, but I'm starting work on Wednesday, so I'm no longer sure if that's going to work. I guess we'll see how that goes. I'm no longer sure how I feel about this novel. I don't like it as much as I did when I started it, and I'm not sure if that's because I'm just not feeling it at the moment or because it's actually not as good as I was hoping it would be, but I'll wait another month at least after I finish it before I decide for certain.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Heresy — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:02:25 +0100

I suppose I should put in an update about my draft 2.0, which is now 2.1. I finished editing it this past monday and now it's sitting in the metaphorical drawer with me not looking at it while I busily bang out a first draft outline for book 2 in the series, Possession. When I'm ready, I'll go back and reread the whole thing in one go, no editing, see how it feels. As an aside, I think i finally have a better title for the first book (and one that might actually be good, even), which is excellent because the old one was driving me mad with hate. I do, on the other hand, feel fairly good about the writing. -Julie

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Mitsukai-aka — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:09:20 +0100

Working on macro-editing the first draft of my novel. It scares the living day lights out of me, especially since I have a lovely person from here who is being kind enough to read the first two chapters (possibly the whole thing) and give me their thoughts and ideas. I swear my inner writer is now coming out and screaming about theft. XDX I don't really think it, but it's hard to throttle her down when I have let her run free for the last two months. My goal for the next week is to get notes on every chapter, the big things that I want to fix....including figuring out the society. Good luck to everyone! Ciao, mitsu

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Carolf — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:15:00 +0100

I guess I should check in, as well. I think I'm on 2.1, now. I did a read-through of 2.0, and now have some major scenes to write. One entire third of the book is a very complex section, where lots is happening, but it's not as much activity as it is pouring through computer logs and finding traces of wrong-doing. By the end of the section, we know the how. All that remains is the who, which gets us to the last third, which is full of action. The section on I'm on now is exacting. Lots of things are happening simultaneously in two different locations in two different time zones about eight hours apart. There are messages back and forth. How to show? Do I show the discovery that goes into the message? Or do I show the message, and let it tell the story? Or do I summarize the message and show the results on the receiver? How do I keep the hours straight? How do I show simultaneity in a liner format? All these questions are why this section got short shrift in the first draft, and was glossed over in 2.0. The time of reckoning has come. I'm finding that I do a lot of intense thinking and outlining, and not much writing right now.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

KaelynAngelfoot — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:37:31 +0100

I just rewrote most of the chapters I'm having issues with. Still have two scenes that might be salvageable, but it all needs heavy editing. I'm suffering from lack of motivation, or maybe too much motivation. I have a hundred things I want to do with the book and am having a tough time picking any one item and just working on that. Trudging on anyway...

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

Kelly The Red — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:55:30 +0100

COMPLETELY changing how my novel is set up. Where I had all three sisters in each chapter, I am moving scenes so each chapter follows only one sister at a time. Up to chapter 4 at this point, so just about on target. It really helps that my Nano writing group decided to keep meeting twice a month. And we exchange a chapter each time we meet. Forced deadlines, my best motivation. That and chocolate.

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

ValerieValerah — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:30:20 +0100

That's awesome, K! I've started a total re-write (well, i was able to save about 4 scenes from the original draft that didn't need a major re-due). So far I'm about 3K in with about 40K to go (if my guestimation is right.) Hoping to up my daily word count to at least 1.5K a day, and have some chapters up for my critique group to gut. Still hoping to have everything (writing and editing draft 2) by the end of March...

Re: Draft 2.0 Club

WhatsForDinner — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:49:24 +0100

Too funny. I'm finally starting revisions, so I decided to read through this thread, only to find Kelly drafting a novel with three adult sisters. Mine is very character driven, so the biggest issue for revisions will be adding in actual plot and conflict. Stuff happens, but I need to change events into plot points. Not sure how this will work out. I've already re-read draft one (not horrible), and more recently have been doing some Snowflake-inspired analysis of the characters and their plot outlines. Now I'm starting the page-by-page slog. Wish me luck! I have vague hopes of finishing the slog by the end of February. Sounds like a reasonable goal. Good luck to the others in process!