ext_88375 ([identity profile] kelly-swails.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] j_cheney 2008-11-20 12:10 am (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm pretty organic in my process. Uusally I start with a rough outline, and by rough I mean I have scribbles on a few sheets of notebook paper that has a beginning and an end and a few characters and that's it. I'll write about a third of it before I discover my "outline" is horribly wrong, so I rewrite the outline and edit what I have. I'll get about 2/3 of the way done when I figure out the real ending is not at all how I envisioned it, so I rewrite the outline, edit what I have, then finish the book. At this point I send it to beta readers who tell me I have the wrong ending (or the wrong motivations or terrible characters or whatever) and so I edit and rewrite the whole thing. Once more to the readers and then it's done. So ... five drafts, but the first three could almost be counted as one.

I think "process" posts are so fascinating. So many ways, all of them right.

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