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Zero Draft or First Draft?

January 25th, 2008

When you start to write something for the first time, how do you do it? I talked a bit about different writing styles a couple of days ago, but I’m thinking more about the actual product. Do you write a complete story, or do you write as you can, and leave notes to yourself about what needs to happen?

I ascribe to the latter. Why? Because I’m a recovering perfectionist. I want to get everything just right, and if I can’t do it, I get bogged down. I find myself unable to move forward until I finish the scene. If I stop because of that, I find it hard to get going again. That’s why I write what I call my Zero Draft. No, it’s not a term I made up myself. Another author used it, and since she’s a published author, I decided it’s okay for me to use the term too.

So, here’s how my Zero Draft works. I write, chugging along happily until I get to a snag, something that I need to write but it’s not coming easily. I work at the problem for about fifteen minutes or so. If I can’t come up with an answer, I type notes to myself in the manuscript, color the text green, and then move on. Why green? Because I send these Zero Draft pages out to my writing group for their first impressions and comments, and they tend to use red or blue for them comments. Green is a nice gentle color, and reminds me that these words aren’t comments, but notes for stuff I have to work on when I do the revisions.

Why don’t I go back and write the stuff I left notes for before I send stuff to my writing group? I want accountability. It’s a mark of achievement. If it’s up and posted at the group, then I’ve “won”, I’ve finished the chapter. I can cross it off my to do list and move on. Even if I don’t get any feedback on it for a couple of weeks, I don’t care. It’s up, it’s done, and I move on.

So that’s my Zero Draft. The first run through of the story, with placeholders. Once I’ve completed that first run through, I’ll go back and fill in those holes - and make changes based on the first set of comments I’ve gotten. After that’s done, I’ll call that my official First Draft. Then it’ll go for another round of comments, maybe another, based on what my writing group says, then I will have to find myself a beta reader. Once that is done, the super scary part starts - getting a submission package together and starting to submit to agents.