A Draft in Three Adjectives

A description of a draft in three acts:

Act 1 - Interminable
Once upon a time, the current WIP was started. It was bright. It was shiny. It was NEW! And there was every expectation that the WIP would meet the same warm welcome from its editor as the first two books of the series. Plot twist: It didn't. Broken hearted, it slunk away to lock itself in a drawer.

Act 2 - Intractable
Eight years passed. The WIP was near death, gasping its last few gasps when the drawer opened. "Guess what!" the author chirped. "We're baaaaack!" The WIP wasn't having it. Abandoned? Tossed aside? And then resurrected like some paper-based Lazarus? Nope. Wasn't gonna be that easy to bring this work back to life. But the writer wouldn't quit. Just. Wouldn't. Give. Up. Slowly, over a stupidly long period of time and with far too many words, the WIP and the writer got reacquainted. As in any good romance, they learned to trust one another again, at long last. They achieved mutual respect. Maybe even affection.

Act 3 - Imminent
And now the WIP is within a solid day's attention of reaching The End. Assured of a warm reception, (because that contract has already been signed) the WIP is barreling for a beta read and then to its editor. Which means we're right back to Act 1 for the next WIP.

Clean, Partly Cloudy, and Fuzzy

Our topic at the SFF Seven week is all about first drafts, and the adjectives we'd choose to describe them. My three?

Clean

I write pretty clean overall, which is a blessing. I'm lucky enough to have one of those brains that retains spelling and picks out typos pretty easily. My weirdest mistake is the homonym errors that emerge when I'm in deep drafting. Stupid ones - like know instead of no. I think it's because at my core I'm an auditory learner. When my trained, conscious mind is less engaged, I revert to how words sound. Otherwise, though, copy editors love me. There's usually not a lot of minor stuff to correct.

Partly Cloudy

For the most part the story is pretty clear when I'm done with the first draft - but there can be some places that are a little obscure. My developmental edits are almost always adding, clarifying and filling in. The polishing of the first draft makes it all shine with no fogginess.

Fuzzy

I spent way too long looking for the exact word I wanted here. Revising the first draft for me means tightening up the dangling threads. I really wanted a weaving term for this, but could only find the fix, not the adjective for the unfinished state. Sometimes I discover insights as I finish the story, so I have to go back and make sure those threads are apparent from the start. I trim up the dangling threads and sort of hem up the whole story.