D is for Dispirited
As I was trying to think of a title for this post (my original idea was “When You Want to Look Away,” LOL), “D is for Dispirited” popped into my head, because dispirited is how I’ve been feeling since I finished spending time this summer analyzing the first draft of my first novel. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll know that before I left Turin for the summer I printed out my draft, all 445 pages of it, then took it with me so I could have a hard copy to read and work on.
In this post I go through what I did to review my first draft and what my plans are for my novel in the nearish future. As a bit of background, I started working on this draft five years ago, during the Covid lockdown. I was new to creative writing at that point (I had written a lot but not in the form of stories), and at some point in the spring of 2020 I signed up for my first creating writing course online.
The Steps I Took
In short, these are the steps I took:
- printed and bound the draft
- read the draft
- set up a revision notebook
- used The Last Draft to help analyze what I had
- wrote down my initial impressions and
- had a meeting with my writing instructor
Below I talk about each of these steps.
Printing and Binding
Printing and binding seem like they would be no-brainers, but actually it took a lot more decision-making than I expected. I printed the draft in Turin, which meant it was on A4 size paper, which is different from the standard U.S. letter size. Why does that matter? Because once I finally decided how I wanted to bind the pages (my local copy shop in Turin didn’t have any options I liked due to the size of the draft), it meant I had to find a place that could deal with the A4 paper size.
I toyed with the idea of keeping the pages together with rubber bands but I had visions of pages blowing away, and binder clips made the actual size of the stack enormous (believe me, I tried — that was a fun hour clipping and then unclipping all the chapters). In the end, I decided on spiral binding and had it done at FedEx. The people at the local office where I went in Santa Fe were great and got it done quickly. They had to split the project into two halves but that was fine with me. I also can’t change out pages, but that is also okay. Total cost of printing and binding: approximately $35.
Read the Draft
After I got my draft ready, I sat down and read it. This is another step that might sound obvious, but I bet a lot of people just start trying to work on a second draft without actually reading their entire first draft from start to finish. Sandra Scofield, in her excellent book, The Last Draft, recommends doing this in one sitting. Since my draft is so long, and I had family commitments during that time period, that was impossible. I also wasn’t under some sort of deadline for publication. Total time: 10-11 days.
Set Up a Revision Notebook
After I read the draft, I set up a revision notebook (revision journal). I might go into more details on this in a future post, but the idea is to have one notebook or journal that you use only for thoughts related to your draft. I have, of course, written a lot of words about the words I’ve written in my draft, but this was my first time setting up a specific, physical notebook to use only for this particular project. In my case, I used a really cool Miquelrius notebook that I found in the U.S. Total cost: about $10 (I lucked out and found the notebook on sale).
Analyzed Using The Last Draft
Along with going into more detail on how I set up my revision notebook, I might include more specifics about what exercises I did in The Last Draft, but the bottom line is I started by rereading the first 60 or so pages of her book. These pages include useful advice and explanations on various narrative elements, including scene, summary, interiority, interrogation, and so on. After that, I wrote out answers to as many exercises as I could during our writing attack in July. This included writing more than one story summary (not a pitch, blurb, or cover text) and generally thinking about my draft from various angles. Total time: 4 intensive days.
Hands down the single most useful exercise for me was writing multiple story summaries, which I then shared with my writing attack partner so I could get her feedback. Writing these summaries really helps because anything that is missing or really doesn’t make sense or work well becomes glaringly obvious.
Initial Impressions
One of the first and most important questions Scofield has you answer is: Is your draft what you thought it would be? My overarching initial impressions were: I really like my characters and some of the dialogue; the volume on my protagonist for some reason feels “turned down”; and there is way too much scene/not enough summary (which is part of the reason it’s too long). Finally, I came to the sad realization that at least two of my favorite characters have to go. Their storylines aren’t really necessary and I don’t think I have enough skill as a beginning novelist to pull off having so many interconnected storylines.
I Wish I Had…
I wish I had…written more story summaries, and earlier in the process. As I said above, a story summary isn’t a pitch, blurb, or back cover text. It’s for you to use to think about your story. As you write one, you (hopefully) get clearer and clearer on the entire story. It’s not an outline, but it does cover all the major events, or can show you where events are missing. The problem is…I did try to write a story summary early on, but it just didn’t work for me for some reason. Now, though, I think I’ll try to do this more completely and sooner on. It’s very difficult, but so useful.
As More Time Has Passed
It’s interesting, because I wasn’t dispirited right after I read my draft. Those feelings have only set in as more time has passed. My writing instructor kindly read my story summary. This was invaluable because he was able to tell me what, in his mind, the major issues are. Actually, I think this is when the dispiritedness set in, because one of the things he told me is that the publishing world doesn’t want any more Covid novels now. To paraphrase him, Covid can be in the background, but your plot points shouldn’t turn on it.
My novel isn’t entirely based on Covid, but it is set in the first five or six months of 2020, and there is at least one major plot point that is Covid-dependent. Realizing how much work I’ve put in and how hard it would be to change my story is I think what pulled me down. There are other issues, including my protagonist having problems rather than an actual dilemma, as my instructor puts it. I agree with him on this and think this is something I can fix/improve.
Down with Dispirited and a Pat on the Back
So, after about a month off from thinking about or looking at my draft, and because my general bent is optimistic rather than dispirited, I say down with dispirited. I think it’s important to acknowledge that writing a whole novel, however long, is hard work, and anyone who does so deserves a pat on the back, me included. I don’t want to minimize the amount of effort I’ve put in and how much it’s contributed to my learning.
That being said, am I ready to work on my draft again? No, I’m not. LOL I’ve decided to put the project on hold for a while and do something else. Specifically, I’m working on a flash fiction story. It should come as no surprise that it’s going to be on the longer side, but still under 1500 words. I’ve written out a first draft by hand, and will get that typed up and sent out to my crit group in the coming days.
Do You Have Experience with Drafting a Novel?
Do you have experience with drafting a novel? What do you remember about the first time you read your very first draft? What about another large project? How do you analyze what worked and what didn’t? What do you do when you feel dispirited? Let me know in the comments below.
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