Hey, everyone. In order to help you more on your writing journey, we’re going to focus this Thursday blog on your questions and Book Therapist related ideas and tips.
So, if you have a question about writing, craft, the industry, be sure to send it your therapist, me! Rachel@mybooktherapy.com
Here’s a couple of questions for today’s blog:
Q: What’s the difference between a rough draft and a fast draft?
A: Great question. A rough draft can be several things. It could be a fast draft that you’ve rewritten and cleaned up. Or the first draft of your novel from beginning to end. Even if you’ve edited and rewritten along the way, it probably needs one more pass through to get everything tight and prettied up.
You might have more telling than you want. Maybe your metaphors and symbolism is obvious so you layer it in a bit more. A rough draft probably needs the dialog to be cleaned up and made more purposeful. You might have too many trite exchanges like, “Hello, how are you?” “I’m fine, you?” Get rid of those on your next pass.
A rough draft needs a good solid polish. It’s not quite ready for submission but one or two passes through will get it there.
A rough draft doesn’t need a lot of rewriting by way of ripping out scenes and taking the story in a different direction. The building blocks and scenes are pretty much in place the way you want them.
A fast draft on the other hand is one you spit out. It’s what NaNoWriMo is all about. You turn off that internal critic and hammer out the story. You could have three characters name Fred. All spelled a different way!
You might change your setting in the middle of the story and not go back to fix the beginning. You write things like, “Bla, bla, bla.” She turned and left the room.
Or make a notation in the middle of a scene: ADD EMOTION HERE. A lot of my fast drafts have stuff like “MORE SENSES.”
A fast draft doesn’t care about polish or prettying up words. A fast draft has a lot more telling than showing. The metaphors, if they exist at all, are clunky and obvious. The main goal of a fast draft is to get the story down. No more blank pages! You’ve emotionally connected with the characters.
A fast draft is ugly. But the story building blocks are in place! It will need a lot of work to graduate the story to rough draft mode. Scenes will be rewritten or cut. You might add or delete a POV. You’ll fix the character names and the setting. You’ll layer in scenes and symbolism.
On a rewrite, you might completely rewrite the book using only a portion of your fast draft. But it’s all good because you know the characters and story so well the words pour out.
I recommend fast draft to get the story down. It’s the fun part! Just have fun with the story. See where it takes you!
But! Before you start that first draft, do a bit of prep work. Do your dark wound+lie+fear. Write a pitch and premise to get a good idea of the story spine. The story spine is “what this book is about” road map.
Use the Book Buddy to design your characters. Then, get to writing and have a blast!
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Best-selling, award-winning author Rachel Hauck loves a great story. She excels in seeing the deeper layers of a story. With a love for teaching and mentoring, Rachel comes alongside writers to help them craft their novel. A worship leader, board member of ACFW and popular writing teacher, Rachel is the author of over 15 novels. She lives in Florida with her husband and her dog, Lola. Contact her at: Rachel@mybooktherapy.com.