Atlantis big bang: draft checklist.
Aug. 23rd, 2010 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusI have an Atlantis Big Bang draft. It was hastily written in Dr Wicked in the space of five weekends, more or less. The betas and artist (possibly both artists) enjoy it. It's also, wow, the roughest draft I've ever done.
I'm usually a "clean" writer. I write fast, so even on tight deadlines I have time to polish up my short stories. (My novels have always been WIPs.) But I've never written this fast in my life. 60k words in--because I could only write weekends and started July 4th--about fifteen days (I'm not defensive, am I?).
Now I have advice in hand on how to deal with a messy draft.
Checklist of What To Do With A Draft:
- Set it aside if possible (not possible in this case).
- If needed, read once through to get the whole story in mind (probably not necessary, though pacing is an issue since I splorted this out).
- Highlight any placeholders, missing names, things marked [X], etc.
- Take the story in chunks, either chapters or pieces.
- Work on the scenes that need the most re-writing first.
- Otherwise, start from the back, read to the end, then back up a chunk/chapter read to the end of that. This helps make sure the beginning has everything the end needs.
- Create a list, scene by scene, of what needs to be done (in Word file, or on a white board, or on simple paper).
- Mark the sections you've checked in colored text. This means "checked for things to work on" not "rewritten." Maybe I should have two colors, one for sections I've gone through with an editor's eye, another for scenes that I've fixed.
- Review list. Look for duplicate items to fix all of those at once.
Is that everything? I think I have it.
I'm usually a "clean" writer. I write fast, so even on tight deadlines I have time to polish up my short stories. (My novels have always been WIPs.) But I've never written this fast in my life. 60k words in--because I could only write weekends and started July 4th--about fifteen days (I'm not defensive, am I?).
Now I have advice in hand on how to deal with a messy draft.
Checklist of What To Do With A Draft:
- Set it aside if possible (not possible in this case).
- If needed, read once through to get the whole story in mind (probably not necessary, though pacing is an issue since I splorted this out).
- Highlight any placeholders, missing names, things marked [X], etc.
- Take the story in chunks, either chapters or pieces.
- Work on the scenes that need the most re-writing first.
- Otherwise, start from the back, read to the end, then back up a chunk/chapter read to the end of that. This helps make sure the beginning has everything the end needs.
- Create a list, scene by scene, of what needs to be done (in Word file, or on a white board, or on simple paper).
- Mark the sections you've checked in colored text. This means "checked for things to work on" not "rewritten." Maybe I should have two colors, one for sections I've gone through with an editor's eye, another for scenes that I've fixed.
- Review list. Look for duplicate items to fix all of those at once.
Is that everything? I think I have it.
