Write fast and edit longer?

It is known among writers that the first draft is rubbish and should not be shown to anyone but yourself. And there is a good reason for that: it is difficult to know what you need in the story until you have written it and gotten to know the characters.

But I am the youngest of four children and ignored that rule when I proudly boasted about finishing “Red Twin“. For those of you who have read that draft: I apologize.

I used the “write fast – edit” method and tried to produce around 1000 words per day during 2023. It gave me a “complete” story with a beginning, middle, and end, but the problem was that I hadn’t used any clear methodology and didn’t know my characters very well before I started. How can you do that if you haven’t met them yet?

Stephen King is not your typical author, but he also advocates for this in his book “On Writing“. According to King, you should “kill your darlings” before the second draft.

It has been difficult for me to reuse much from the draft: either the scenes no longer serve a purpose or they do not align with the characters’ journeys.

Then one could argue that I follow King’s rules. But I can’t write about the book again – the draft was 120,000 words long and there must be something salvageable, right?

Some characters had to be killed off without you even reading about them, and some had to be added to guide Tuya in the right direction.

There were many interesting scenes in the draft and they must be editable according to my will. Here we can benefit from generative A.I. like ChatGPT.

What I’m doing is looking at my notes from the basic world-building and telling the A.I. what I already know about, for example, the silvians. By asking very specific questions, I can get very specific answers. This gives me a clearer picture of the culture and makes it easier to understand what needs to be changed during the editing process.

In this way, the first draft does not have to be completely worthless, instead, I can identify what the problem is, fix it, and actually edit the text to make it work.

When I have posted my revised chapter, I rely on you to tell me what works and what doesn’t work. Further editing can polish the chapter to make it ready for publication.

In the end, I will have a revised draft that I can take to the next step – a professional editor. They can help me identify any further structural issues so that I can correct them before letting a proofreader give the manuscript a final review. After that, we proceed!

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See you in the Colony!