MatthewGnann.com

“The first draft of anything is shit.” – Ernest Hemingway.

I finished writing my first draft about a couple of weeks ago. Looking back at it, I would have to say I don’t completely agree with my favorite author up there–I don’t think it is all shit, but I do believe there is a lot cluttering the real story. Reading back over it can be painful at points. About 10 pages will probably disappear by just deleting unnecessary adverbs, another 20 will go when I edit out all the overly descriptive, leisurely construed, exercising-the-typing-fingers sentences with confusing structures that contain little information, and lots of commas.

Thanks go to my proofreaders for putting up with that.

The hardest part was definitely keeping up with the information that I created. Not just plot, but each character’s history, what is happening, what needs to be said, what has been said, and what needs to be hinted at but saved for later. It is hard keeping up with all of them. The easiest part for me was the dialogue. I think I successfully found each character’s voice and did a good job with conversations between them. I should write a story that is nothing but dialogue.

That makes me think of a Hemingway story right there. If you never have, you should read Hills Like White Elephants.

Another thing I think I did well was world-building. This is certainly a result of working on this project for a number of years, giving me plenty of time to create a rich history. This book only delves into a small part of the overall history and culture of the Taros/Eskra world. I do have a short outline for a second and third book that continues to reveal the rest of the world’s story, but that will come much later.

What I don’t think I did well was create a clear, interesting magic system. The magic system I have in mind is not what I communicated on the page. I tried, but it came out funky and clunky. That will be the most major source of revamping when I write the second draft of this book.

Now I need to let some people read what I have and give me some feedback. My mind has been in the Taros/Eskra world too long for me to see things clearly anymore. So I’m going to put it down. I have two other stories I want to work on. While my readers go over my first draft I am going to work on these other ideas. I’ll probably post some stuff here about those as well, shaping this blog into more of a complete writer’s blog instead of centering around one single idea.

There is still a lot of work to be done (I have no ideas for a title, I’m terrible at titles) but I feel a huge weight taken off my shoulders for finally getting the first draft written. It’s taken years, but I feel like they were years well spent. A lot of people say they want to write a book, but they never finish–if they ever start. I’m really proud of what I have done, even if it does still need a good bit of polish and shine.