Writing Tip: Drafts

Who in the world thought of the word 'draft' (as in, "I wrote the first draft of my book")? It's one odd word.

Anyway, another tip for writing a book is doing drafts. I like to write my first drafts in a notebook, not on the computer. It's basically the 'bones' of the book, and you can make your first draft as messy as you want. Like mine--crossed out words, squished in sentences, abbreviated names, and scribbled notes. Then I type it all up on the computer and start adding the 'muscle'--incorporating the notes, rewriting sentences, and so on. Then I re-read the whole thing and edit it all.

Sometimes, like with the Elandai series, I don't do drafts. That's a little harder, because if you made your plot do one thing, and then later realize that you didn't want it to do that, you can't go back and fix it. That makes the Elandai series a little interesting, because even though sometimes I do think ahead, I have no clue where I'm going next (like now).

Izori