Malinda Lo
Blog
Jul 1, 2010
The process
This week I started writing a new book, and I’ve set myself a goal of writing 1500 words per day. I do it first thing, and when I’ve hit 1500 words, I stop. (I go over a bit sometimes, but usually I stick to 1500.) I’ve learned through experience that if I write much more than that, I get really drained and can’t write as much the next day. This got me thinking about how my process of writing has evolved over the past couple of years, when I’ve been writing fiction full-time.
I’ve learned that there are a few distinct phases I go through in writing a novel, and I have to structure those phases differently. For instance, in the rough drafting phase, which I’m in now, I really have to just push forward every day. Giving myself a word count goal helps me to move the story forward.
I only allow myself to do a little bit of editing, and pretty much only on the stuff I wrote the day before. In other words: On Monday I’ll write 1500 words, but I will not edit them. On Tuesday I start out by reading the stuff I wrote on Monday, and I’ll let myself revise a little bit, but not too much. Then I write 1500 new words. Wednesday, I read Tuesday’s words, then write Wednesday’s chunk. Etc.
The point in this phase is getting the story out. It’s messy and there are a lot of mistakes in it — plot mistakes, character problems, chunks where I have things in brackets like [Look this up]. But if I stopped to deal with those things as they arose, I would never move forward, and getting a whole draft down on paper is the goal.
The second phase begins after I receive my editor’s first editorial letter. I say “first” because so far, there have always been more than one! This is OK, though, because this is where the real work begins.
Rough drafting is rough going at the beginning for me, because I’m still trying to figure out what the style of the novel is, or what my voice should be for this book. But as I get deeper into the novel, it usually picks up speed until I’m just having a lot of fun. Revision does not usually have this same joy! But at the same time, I think I actually enjoy revising better than rough drafting, because it’s at this stage that the book really begins to take shape. It’s also at this stage where I begin working on it for most of the day.
During rough drafting, I can often get 1500 words written in three hours. The rest of the day is taken up with other business stuff — and believe me, there’s plenty to occupy my time. But during revision, I sometimes spend an hour staring at one sentence, so I like to take most of the day to revise. That’s when all that other business stuff starts to get oppressive, because it’s taking time away from revision.
Phase 2, revision, can go on for months and months and months. There can be phase 2.1, phase 2.2, etc. — all the way until I get to a finished draft that goes to copyediting. With each successive phase, I get deeper and deeper into the novel. This means that I’m increasingly focused, in each round of revisions, on sharpening action, character, dialogue, etc.
By the time I get to copyediting, which I’ll call phase 3, I’m totally worn out by the book. But luckily, copyediting can be less intensive. This is where you dot your I’s and cross your T’s. In this stage, I try to get through 50 pages of the manuscript per day. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don’t, but it’s good to have a target. I’ve added entire scenes during copyediting, but even though they may be significant moments in the story, it doesn’t feel as intensive as deep revision.
I’m not sure if this information is interesting to anyone but me, but for some reason I feel like documenting it. This week I started writing a new book. I’m excited about it. Today I actually wrote 2000 words. It took me about an hour and a half to get through the first 300 words, but the last 500 came in only 20 minutes.
How do you write? Do you have any questions about the process? I’m feeling processy. 
That is pretty much my process exactly. Except phase 2 for me is me doing a major revision on my own – retyping from scratch – before turning in to editor. Then, yeah, any number of revisions. So over the book by copyediting! But then it gets exciting again when you see the cover, etc.
Of course, as soon as I saw your comment I remember, oh yeah, I edit the rough draft before I send it to my editor! I must have blocked out that memory.
I don’t re-type from scratch (wow) but I remember doing a quick and dirty edit last time, and I think I will this time, too. I guess it’s sort of like phase 1.1. It’s definitely not as major as my my later revisions.
I tend to jump around in my writing. I’ll start at the beginning, work from scene to scene…then suddenly get an idea for something that happens later in story, write that and so on. It can be very confusing and tedious at times. Especially when I have to go back and write bits that tie the scenes together.
Heh, I do the bracket thing too. Unfortunately, sometimes I have no idea what I meant when I leave a note like this (Put thingy here).
I want to thank you so much for posting this today! I have been trying to jog through quicksand writing the first rough draft of my first novel. I recently set the goal of 1,000 words a day and got 2,500 the first day out then was completely spent and struggled the next day. This helps so much.
I’ve never been able to write out of order on the first draft. I’m amazed by people who do!
I’m glad it helped, Valerie. Thanks for stopping by! I definitely believe that you can drain yourself dry by writing too much in one sitting. Coming up with new material takes a lot out of you, and with a first novel you’re doing a LOT of “new” things. Good luck with your book!
Malinda,
I’ll have to do mine because it’s so different. I love the fact that writers have different ways of ending up at the same place = book written.
My initial process is similar to yours except that with my dayjob taking up a chunk of time I usually shoot for 1K a day while drafting. And I also usually end up stopping at some point about 15-30K in and re-outlining/re-working everything, cutting out a bunch, etc. But I do the revise-what-you-wrote-the-day-before thing.
After I have the draft, I do a revision on my own that can be relatively substantial. I also have thus far always done a revision based on feedback from a few writing buddies before sending it to agent/editor.
And yeah, even though I outline, the rough draft is still a challenge because I am still, as you say, figuring out the style and finding the voice.
Have fun drafting! I’m just getting out of the middle of my mine, hoping for some of that thundering into the finale energy!
I was wondering how do you turn off that inner editor? How long does it take to finish the rough draft?
Thanks for commenting, Deva. Here’s to that thundering finale!
Well, let’s say a final draft is about 80,000 words. So if I write 1500 words/day, it should take about 54 days to write a first draft. I write Mon-Fri, so it’s just about 11 weeks. However, I’d add in an extra week or two for slow days/writer’s block/life, so I’d say that if I were really lucky, a first draft could be done in 12-13 weeks.
As for how to turn off that inner editor, that may be fodder for an entire separate post. It’s hard, that’s true. It gets easier with practice, though.
My process is very similar! The main differences are that I write long hand and because I’m as-of-yet un-agented and working full time with horses (which are sort of like dealing with 1100 lb three year olds) I usually can’t get 1500 words written each day. Oh but I try, I PINE for 1500 words a day… and sometimes I get close.
Occasionally I go back farther and reread what I’ve written, especially if I’ve gotten to a point where I realize that the story needs to evolve differently than my original vision. Once I understand that, I want to know exactly how I set up plot point A or B, or whatever, in the beginning, so I can restructure what I’m working on right that moment. I’ll usually throw a note down back wherever the original set up is too, just to give me an idea of how I want to change it.
Once I’ve got the entire first rough draft written, I transcribe it into the computer which is also my first big overhaul edit. To my delight, the more I write, the less of a true ‘overhaul’ this step is becoming. After I’ve finished transcribing I’ll set the book aside for a week or so, and then go back and edit more, eventually sending it to my betas and on to agents.
It’s nice to see how writers think in an authentic context. This gives me a lot more to talk about with my 3rd graders about how “real” writers go through the writing process.
mine is almost exactly the same too!
but i think i aimed for more like 1k – 1200
words. tho with FURY i pushed myself for
longer words–altho they came so slowly.
because i was on a much tighter schedule.
i don’t edit either and reread to get back into
the story the following day.
rough drafting is so hard for me. i don’t
know how i do it. i have psyche myself up
and establish goals, like you do.
Ha ha, I was wondering if you sent it to the editor without correcting the “[Look this up]“s.