I've hit a stumbling block on my road to a finished draft.... I'm almost out of outline but not out of book! I wrote a nice drafty outline early on and then started fleshing it out, detailed ideas of what was to happen every few paragraphs. That way all I had to do was fill in dialouge. And now I'm out of fleshed out outline!
I have finished 2 chapters in the past 24 hours and I intend to finish chapter 16 before bed. If that goes well I'll add chapter 17. If nothing else I'll have the first 100 pages (single spaced, size 12 TNR) written by the first. That much I can get done. 75000 words (single spaced blah blah blah) is about 170 pages typed and roughly 300 in paperback form. And since I know I desperatley need to do some world building and add description to the draft before I polish I know the word count is going to grow.
Someone said Stephen King tells authors to cut 20% of their original draft to polish. Mr. King and I just don't have the same writing style. I don't doubt that around the third or fourth draft I'll cut quite a bit, but my rough drafts are sketches, dialouge and some action with very little description or introspection. That's getting added on the second draft. On the third I trim. On the fourth I savage the draft, grind it down, cut out all the fatty words, and hopefully have something beautiful at the end.
Just thought I'd pop in to say hi, since you visited my LJ. Ah, revision. You know, I'd heard that Stephen King quote before and never agreed with it until the novel I'm revising now. The way things are evolving in my head, I have to practically rewrite the book. But I don't start with a detailed outline, so I guess I should expect to have to do more rewriting than some people. Ah, well.
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