DRAFTING AND REVISION

How to Get the Final Result

You love reading books. You fall in love with the characters. The plot drags you in, keeping you up for a day or two. You're heartbroken when the story ends, unless it's a series.

All of this inspired you to write your story. You have ideas on what you want your story to be about. You either stare at the blank Word document or your notebook. You don't know where to start or how. You don't even know your own characters!

No need to fret! I have some advice on how to start the drafting process, which will lead to the revision stage. Hopefully, you'll get your final product in the end.

One thing to note is that this may not work for everyone. Everyone has their own process. I'm just giving out what worked for me in hopes that it might help someone.

The First Draft

So you have an idea you want to write about. That's great! Where do you begin? This is where I come in:

For me, I would have a basic plot idea. Example:
"In the near future, the world is in dystopia; and the music industry has fully adopted the KPop business model of churning out pop acts."

You can write your basic plot idea out on any form of media, whether it be on a notebook or on a computer.

Next are the characters. What I would do is take inspiration from both celebrities and Pinterest. I get inspired by what I see and create characters from them. To me, they give me faces to my characters. I come up with their names, usually taking basic names. Then comes their personality and their behaviors; and maybe a bit of their backstory. I'll give the character a profile like this:

Name: Jenny Park

Age: 18

From: New York City

Jenny is struggling to help her family that is under financial burden. She loves to sing and dance, but never had any form of training. She can be nice, but will not always play nice.

Once I have my cast list, I start either outlining the story or dive in head first. It depends on how much material I have in mind. If it's all too cluttered, then I'll do the outline. I always do this: "Chapter1: This event happens and this happens too."

Eventually I'll have a full story to work on. Regardless if I start with, the important thing is to finish writing the story. Don't worry about editing it or making last minute changes. Get that story done first, post it online, and join book clubs to get the critiques you need.

The Second and Third Draft

You've joined the book club. You got the critiques you needed for your story, hopefully for the entire story. You've taken some time off from your story. Now it is time to look at everything.

As I've said with one of my previous articles, you don't have to take everything the critiquers gave you. It's your story, but you do need to be open to making some changes.

After you look through everything, you have two options: Either completely rewrite the entire story, or just make adjustments. For the second draft, you might just have to rewrite everything. Expand the storyline. Add more fat that you'll have to cut out eventually. At this point, you don't need to make an outline unless you really need it. Just build on what you have.

Once you have the second draft, post it online again, and get those critiques. After that process, look at what needs to be done. Most likely you'll just need to make adjustments, but you may still have to do a bit more rewriting. Not for the entire story; just clean up certain areas.

The Final Draft

You could repeat the process again, over and over. I have been given this advice before, but I'll tell you this: You don't have to. If the story looks relatively decent that just needs some cleaning up, based on the critiques you were given, stop rewriting. There came a time when I was sick of my first novel, Let Me Be The One. At that point, I decided to finally stop the rewriting-and-critiquing process.

If you feel you're ready to officially publish your story, whether it be traditional or self-publish, the next step is to do technical edits on your story. At this point, the plots and the characters have been cleaned up. Now, you have two options: Either hire an editor or do it yourself.

Hiring an editor can be very expensive. If you have a job and make decent money, you could probably afford one, but make sure you shop around first. See which one is worth the money and has good reviews. You'll want to get your money's worth.

If you have a job, but bills take up most of your money, or you're currently unemployed, do not hire an editor. Instead, do the technical edits yourself. There's this website that helps with this: ProWriterAid. There are two options: Free or subscription. Go with the free one. Follow the instructions. Get a free report on your story to see what needs to be worked on, technical-wise. Then begin the process to finalize the product.

Once all that is done, you make the decision to either submit to agents for publication, or publish it independently by yourself. Just do your research, see what would be a good fit for you.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the process of creating your final product is a process. It is very tiring and tedious, but it would be worth it in the end. You should be proud of the work you created, regardless of what state it's in. You got to create something that you made. Go and watch people enjoy the work you have made.

Content Created by ImTheGirl