How I Write Clean One-Draft Fiction…
Writers Can Not Seem to Understand This…
So first, let me say I averaged 1.3 million words of fiction a year from 1992 until 2023. You do the math.
I wrote 106 novels in traditional publishing under a ton of pen names, and even more in indie. I have published north of 800 books and written over 700 short stories. Well over 35 million copies of my books are in print.
All were written by the exact method I am about to tell you about…
Tonight for a short story I came up with a title by combining two half-titles. “The Real Shape of Death.”
So I started typing and had just over 400 words done in 25 minutes. Fairly fast for me with an opening.
I stopped, climbed out of the timeline of the story and went back to the opening and started through it again, staying in creative voice. I added some depth, made sure names were clear, hit the return key a few more times to keep the flow moving, and by the time I got to my 400 word spot where I had left, I had just over 600 words.
I kept going, got to about a thousand words in just over an hour, took a break, and when I came back I started at the first line again, going through, fixing things and adding depth and sentences and such and when I got back to where I had left off, I had just over 1,200 words.
Wrote five hundred more words, stopped, went up out of the timeline of the story and went back about six hundred words and went through it all again, adding another 100 words.
I kept up that cycling process until I reached the end two hours later with one break, went back over the last four hundred words to make sure it was clean, and then printed up the story.
I averaged just over 1,000 words per hour with breaks, my normal speed.
One time through, clean draft when done. I will never look at the story again, got another one to write tomorrow night.
So you want to know how to write clean, one draft stories? That is how.
16 Comments
Harvey Stanbrough
Amen. And I’ll bet you were having a ball all the way through.
My only variance from that is that I write straight through for about an hour, take a break (might be a few minutes or I might have a chore to do), then cycle back over the previous session when I come back. Takes maybe all of five minutes. When I reach the white space again, I’m back in the story and I keep writing. Lather, rinse, repeat. Most fun I can have with my clothes on.
Rock on!
Marc Meaney
Yup. This is my process too after learning of Dean;s example I tried it and loved it. I go one step further – I publish what I write within 10 minutes of finishing the first draft. It’s gone – out of here – being read within minutes of my first draft being completed. I publish all my chapters in first draft as I complete them.
When I’m working a project (which is always) I’m writing two hours at night after my son goes to bed. And sp complete a 2500+ word chapter a day, 5 times a week. As Dean said – you do the math.
Follow this process and wyou won’t look back. I do a brief scan only when I compile my book for print publication – and shake my head in surprise at how my creative voice comes up with it all.
Trust that voice.
Kathryn Kaleigh
Marc,
Where do you publish your daily work?
Bill Smith
Dean:
Thank you for explaining your writing process. If I remember correctly, this process of going back is what you called “cycling” in your “Writing Into the Dark” series.
Quick question on your process: You noted starting with a title. And then … how did you begin? Did you have an idea of the characters or the conflict before you started? A setting?
Did you just start noodling out words and you found the story along the way? How does that work for you? Do things just come to you as you start putting the words down?
It sounds like the story kind of reveals itself in the telling and then you go back in the cycling process and add little details and flourishes that tie it all together?
Thanks,
Bill
dwsmith
Bill, I look at my title and what triggers from the title I just start typing and see what happens. No great secret. I just start typing and let me creative voice take me where it wants to go. Sometimes it goes off in a wild direction and I have to go back and change the title that started it all. But I just use the title as a trigger and then write depth through a character, whatever pops up as I write.
Mangala McNamara
Love this. The detail helps – is not that you are just blindly accepting whatever you typed in Cycle 1. You are re-living it and drowning it a bit – clarity, typos, etc – and moving on.
My cycles are longer, but I haven’t done a much with short stories (next year’s challenge!!!) So that makes sense.
As I see it, it’s more about removing the critical voice of Others (developmental editors…) and”helpers” (beta readers).
The internal critical voice… like Harvey noted a day or two ago, I’m just recording the characters’ story and getting out of the way. So for me, there’s not really much of an issue with internalcritical voice.
The few times I’ve tried to rush something or”direct” the story… it wrecks the whole thing, so I’ve learned not to do that. (My husband still hears about that… he was trying to be helpful by encouraging me to finish something – anything – and… sigh. That is a story I *will* go back to, not to “rewrite” the end, but to write the end of was supposed to have in the first place. Someday. When other stories aren’t screaming in my ears. It’s probably all of 2 hours…)
Mangala McNamara
I wish other people who are struggling to write (or in any creative pursuit, really) would see this.
But they have the plotters/plodders (thanks Harvey) living in their heads.
I suspect this approach may take a bit longer to be “discovered” by enough readers than the folks who “write to market”… and if they’re happy and productive, more power to them.
Dean, I think you once said something about being able to turn out a clean 1-draft piece to meet market demand in terms of length… due to practice. And I know you write in every shared world known to man (and advise us not to bother now).
Are there other market-demand issues you have written to meet and been happy that you did? Or that you think a relative-newbie indie author should consider mastering?
dwsmith
Avoid any work-for-hire worlds. And in the early years, trying to hit a specific short story market is just practice as long as you can publish the story yourself when it is rejected. Better to write your own stuff.
Mangala McNamara
Thanks!
Jess Thomas
So, it’s an edit as you go draft 🙂 Which isn’t technically a “first draft.” It is edited, just not after the last cycle. Semantics. I actually do this as well, our speed is similar.
dwsmith
Jess, what ever your belief system lets you believe. Go with it.
Rewriting or editing is using the stupid front part of our brains to screw up stories our smart creative voices have done. If I am in creative voice, it is not editing, it is writing. Period.
Angelo Landriscina
I did this cycling thing naturally on the very first novel I ever wrote. Funny how even today, I think it’s a well written piece, and yet I often forget about cycling and have these messy drafts full of typos now. I need to remember to cycle. I didn’t have a name for it back then, or really even realized what I was doing.
Dean, when it comes to writing, I think you’re a badass. Thank you for everything, and especially writing into the dark. Really got me out of a lot of writer’s block and helped me learn about myself when it comes to writing.
Angelo
dwsmith
Thanks, Angelo, for the kind words. Glad I have helped some.
Alex Scott
My problem is that sometimes I can’t stop long enough to actually cycle. I just keep going with the flow until I hit my daily goal, then go back over it the next day.
Dean, your comments about writing to market have had me thinking lately: how do you see the state of the short fiction magazine/anthology market these days? Personally, it feels to me like SFF in particular has only shrunk since the pandemic, and there’s less room for someone like me who *doesn’t* want to write to market or wait six months for a response.
dwsmith
The indie world is taking up the slack on short fiction. It is only a writer’s imagination that limits sales and readers for their short fiction these days. Magazines are just a tiny and sometimes fun part of it, nothing more.
Martin L. Shoemaker
Yesterday a friend posted an image of a warrior with a storm behind him, and he asked who it was and what he was doing. This friend likes to post prompts.
I found a voice, and I started describing the warrior. I was procrastinating, and this was as good an excuse as any.
2,300 words (and counting) I have the opening to a story about a giant fighting a demon in Appalachia, and a mountain man unwitingly summoned to the fight. 2,300 words on an idea that didn’t exist 24 hours ago, and I have no clue how the mountain man and the giant are going to defeat the demon. But it’s damn good.
And in the meantime, I went shopping for two birthday presents, went shopping for gift bags, went to the birthday party for a couple hours, went to a friend’s book signing for four hours, got dinner, came home, and played with the cats.
Thank you for liberating me.