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Starting a new draft – anyone with me?
Posted by sarahlinley Linley on 26 August 2019 at 09:43Just about to embark on a new draft of my current WIP. It’s sort of the third draft but the first two are very scrappy!
I just wondered if anyone else is at this stage and wanted to pair up for word count challenges, etc.?
Goal for September – to revise / rewrite Act 1 (25% of the novel) – aiming for around 6,000 words / week.
jonelle-toriseva replied 5 years, 2 months ago 9 Members · 20 Replies -
20 Replies
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Sarah,
I would be interested in this. I am in Scrivener doing a third daft of the first half of a literary fiction project with supernatural elements. I want to make sure the first half is just killer, and then I know the rest will write itself.
I am finding in the edit that all the hundreds of notecards I have on dialogue, plot, development etc are all coming into play, as well as the hundred or so Scrivener icons I have for structure etc. It is very interesting to see how much work this is.
For a little background, I am working under the guidance of an agent who likes my writing but says I have to knock it out of the park, and that good isn’t good enough. So I am really working hard to kill off lots of my darlings, make it as tight as it can be and knock it out of the park.
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Hi David, that sounds like an interesting project. Good luck!
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Hello Sarah,
I too would love to try. I want to re-write my novel one last time before submitting.
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Hello Sarah,
I too would love to try. I want to re-write my novel one last time before submitting.
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I’m likewise about to start editing two books (in a series; second and first edits respectively)… But, as I’ll be on it full-time, the word-count comparison becomes inequitable (I’ll be targetting closer to 6k/day)
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Six thousand words a day!!!! Oh wow! I couldn’t manage that if I wrote full-time and had three assistants! Good luck!
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Life has already got in the way of my best-laid plans and now it looks like I will be spending the first two weeks of September revising my other novel. Sadly this one is going to have to wait until after 16 September but I’d love to see how everyone else is getting on!
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So it’s now 22 September and I’ve got the first 10,000 words of my draft done. I keep having to remind myself to slow it down otherwise it will end up too short (I’m aiming for around 80,000 words). Anyone else have that problem? I have also been doing quite a bit of research and character development.
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Hi, Sarah!
I’m glad for you! I would like to start a new draft too, and October is pretty free for me. I am aiming for 240 000 signs till February 1. Will see how it goes, till now I have names of main characters 🙂 I need about 2000 signs per day.
My first novel turned out about 51 000 words, although I aimed for 71 000. But my editor was satisfied with amount and it was not a problem.
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Just completed the Alpha draft of a novel. Much re-writing needed. May take six months to reach Beta stage.
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Congratulations on getting the Alpha draft written – good luck with the next stage!
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Just starting a total rewrite here, still in the structuring stage 😆 Still trying to convince myself to play the expected story arc game and not try and break the rules before someone believes in me.
Goal for October = find a story structure which works for those with all the power and doesn’t destroy the heart of the original manuscript. Sounds ominous!
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How are you getting on, Sarah? Did you hit your October goal? For what it’s worth, I wanted to have a first draft by Christmas… I am currently at 10,000 words 😩
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Hi Holly, just creeping up to 61,000 words and have revised my plan so I’m now aiming to finish by the end of January! Good luck with your draft!
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Oh well done! I’ve just crept over 11k after some hacking and rewriting!
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Agonisingly close to 70k now, but I think I’m going to have to cut one of my chapters (or at least radically change it) so could fall behind again 🙂