As a wise ogre once said, "ogres are like onions". This is not because they make people cry nor because they turn brown if you leave them in the sun too long. It is because they have layers. There is more to them than the surface, and there is still more to them just one thing underneath that surface. The same is true for novels.
Recently, I read a Facebook post where the Original Poster shared something from another novelist. This novelist was reacting to a review that they had read and were commenting on. The reviewer remarked that the story they read sounded like the author made it up as they went along. The novelist in the shared post wrote something along the lines of "I hate to break it to you but...." with laughing emoj, signifying that, yes, stories tend to be made up as the author goes along. Someone replying to this post, that someone shared, about a novelist remarking on a review for a story written by yet another novelist expressed skepticism.
(Yes, this Facebook post also has layers! ^_~)
Surely, this commentor on Facebook said, stories are not written as the author goes along. Surely, the author has some plan going in. Surely, they know what they are doing.
Well....Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. The creative process can be messy.
Please allow me to break it down for you.
Draft # 0 - make everything up as you go.
Draft # 1 - read over what you wrote and try to make sense of it.
Draft # 2 - tie everything together, remove and add where necessary.
Draft# 3 - check for consistency of foreshadowing, build-up, resolution, etc.
Draft # 4 - repeat, creating new drafts as necessary.
To go into more detail...
Draft # 0. Yes, I'm starting the count at zero. This is because, in my experience at least, the initial draft is a mess. It might not even be a complete draft, but a sequence of scenes held together by embryonic themes and casual notes. This is because it is the first time that the author's idea for the story comes out into words. For it is one thing to see an idea in one's head and have it play out in the gestalt of thoughts and ideas and images, and quite another to translate that into a linear sequence of words.
Things can happen in that translation:
Story developments take place as the plot unfolds.
Characters develop as the author gets to know them more personally.
Questions of tone and atmosphere must be answered, because the background of the author's mind can no longer support the scenes on (digital) paper.
An author such as Neil Gaiman, in a commercial for his MasterClass Art of Storytelling class, compared writing a story to driving through fog. One only sees what is closest. The novelist is writing the scene, because they only see that scene and what was written immediately before that scene. They don't see what comes after or before.
In this way, they are making it up as they go. Indeed, in the same commercial, Neil Gaiman says that the second draft is about making it appear as though you knew what you were doing all along.
( Link for the curious - Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of Storytelling (masterclass.com). This is not an affiliate link or anything like that. It's just so you know I'm not making this up.)
Draft #1
This is the first "official" draft because it is the first draft that is complete, at least in the most technical sense. The author takes stock of what they wrote, what happens, when, and why, and attempts to get a sense of the whole. They fill in the notes they left in Draft # 0. The novel is still rough, but it is now more than a glorified outline.
Draft # 2
This is where the author can tie the scenes together. They have a complete story and they have a sense of it as both a whole and as a sequence of parts. This is where they can bring it all together. They remove scenes, add scenes, re-write scenes as necessary. This is where the novel starts to resemble what the eventual reader will see.
Draft # 3
Now that the story is technically complete, the author has a sense of its parts and unity, and has tied them together, they can go deeper. They can refine what they have made thus far. Adding foreshadowing to point the way to the next events, they create a path for the eventual reader to follow. Foreshadowing is the greatest illusion of planning-it-out-ahead-of-time. Because the reader sees something in Scene A hinting at or building to Scene H, they think the author planned that out ahead of time. No, not necessarily. That is the process of revision, the luxury of going forwards and then backwards. Indeed, only in foreshadowing between stories published separately does this luxury not exist.
Draft #4
Repeat as necessary. There is beta-reading in this process, which creates another layer as the author considers the feedback and incorporates it into a new draft. The author might discover some critical error in need of correcting, or discover some opportunity to better tell the story they want. They might even decide that some other angle is more interesting or effective than the one they were pursuing. All of these create more layers. These layers are not evident in the final version. Only the polished surface is seen by the eventual reader.
I'm not saying that all authors follow the above process. This is not to say that outlines never happen. I can only speak to my own experience, and, in my experience, there is a lot more revision than pre-planning. It is a layered experience.
Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
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