Can Extensive Outlining Take the Place of the First Draft?
Background: I've been writing fan fiction for five years now. I began when I didn't have a clue what I was doing, so my methods have evolved during those years. By now I have a solid process that I follow, and I feel I have a good grasp on what I'm doing. There is one small detail that has been bothering me for some time now though:
On this site and off, I've heard writers everywhere refer to first, second, third, and sometimes even fourth or fifth drafts. You write your story out as the first draft, wait a while, start over with the second draft, and so on. It's a solid principle that I try to use. I say 'try' because, to this day, I have never written a second draft. Everything I have ever written, every piece of fan fiction, I have written only one draft of. I've done editing for sure, but I've never rewritten the whole thing. The most I've done is maybe rewrite half of a chapter a few times.
Most people say that your first draft is usually terrible. Some even go so far as to say that it has little use beyond getting your idea down. Most agree that you largely dispose of your first draft and simply start over. (These observations are based on what I've heard.) Here's the problem though: starting even with my very first fan fiction, my ratings have consistently been high. My readers have liked what I wrote. Even to me, my writing hasn't looked like the disorganized mess I think a first draft is supposed to be.
I think I know what is going on. As I mentioned above, I have a solid process that I follow. That process is more for outlining and development than writing. I go through every aspect of the fiction that I need (character, plot, stakes, etc.) in detail. I work out exactly what I need, how I'll get it, and where it will be. In fact, by the time I get to the plot section, the fiction has already begun to take shape just from all the other parts I know it will need to have. By the time I'm done with my process and ready to begin the first draft, my fiction is detailed down to the individual scenes. Not much editing of the outline takes place; I generally leave that up to when I am writing, as I feel is necessary. Sometimes, during writing, I change, delete, or add a few scenes to make it work, and I often have to detail things better than I have in the outline, but for the most part, my outline remains in the same general shape as when I started. The closest I've ever come to writing a second draft is scraping chapter one several times in quick succession until I come up with the right opening.
I think because my outlining and development is so detailed, it is taking the place of the first and possibly even the second draft. Could this be? I'm hesitant to accept this, because multiple drafts seems like one of those universal things that all writers go through, with very little exception.
Question: Is my detailed outlining and development taking the place of first and possibly second drafts?
1 answer
Your readers will only read the "final" draft. They will neither know nor care whether the finished version that they have in their hands is the first draft, or the fiftieth. That being the case, there is no requirement for any given number of drafts - either as a minimum or a maximum.
The purpose of multiple drafts (for those who choose to write multiple drafts) is to refine and improve the story until the author - and perhaps their editor and publisher - consider it "done". There is no rule that says a story must have more than one draft to be "done". There is certainly no rule that a first draft should be a "disorganised mess". It might be. It might not be. It is perfectly possible to write the first draft of a story and consider that enough; the story is "done". It is also perfectly possible to write a first draft and find that it is a disorganised mess, which needs refining and improving in second and subsequent drafts. The story is the thing - not the number of drafts.
In your case, it sounds as though your process of planning and structuring before writing the story is working for you (according to you, and your readers?). If that is the case, it sounds very much to me like there is no problem here. There is no requirement for a first draft that gets thrown away in favour of a second draft, so your outlining doesn't need to "take the place" of anything. But, it sounds like your outlining is useful to you to get the story into a good state, where others may need (or choose to have) multiple drafts to reach a similar point. This sounds like a success to me!
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32675. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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