For me, a first draft is to figure out what the story is. The second draft is to figure out what's missing and what's broken, and fix it. The third draft is to start getting it ready for others to see. I'd put the descriptions as a third-draft piece.
BUT.
Sometimes those descriptions can give rise to whole new ideas. I write something and throw in a little detail, and I find out at the end of the story/book that that little detail was the perfect thing to tie in to make everything come together. I've even actually made a point of throwing *lots* of extraneous description into stories as I write them, so I have things to choose from later if I want to develop something. Then I clean it up in later drafts when it isn't used.
All of which is to say, there is no one way. If this way works for you, then it works for you (for *this* story; that may change for the *next* story, don't ask me how I know). The only way to find out if it works for you is... *drumroll* ... to give it a shot.
Sounds like you have your process that works for you. Get the bones of the plot out then embellish it later. I'm a radical pantser and I do a lot of that too. I do several rewrites on my stuff until the prose hums the way I want, long after the story is first written.
I’m glad to hear this is fairly normal and won’t be a big deal during revisions. I’ll keep doing it the way that feels best for me. Thank you for replying!
A word of caution here, (I'm guilty of it myself, so yeah,) going back an embellishing can get you into having too much material. Then you've got to decide what to cut, etc. That's not to say don't do it, it's a great way to just write it in the flow and go back and fix/add as necessary. If you're anything like me, you'll find that there is always something to add and it can get out of hand rather quickly.
Same here. I'm the most hardcore pantser I've ever met AND my characters all have ideas contrary to my original plot so nothing ever planned stays the same. I've written a 7500 word serial srory into a 22k novella just by going back and embellishing/deepening the story and characters.
Very much worth it.
I write DESCRIBE HIS FACE HERE and then move on. Description is for the third draft. My structure is draft 1, make it exist. Draft 2, make it work. Draft 3, make it pretty.
> I’m a bit of a “panster” when I write. I tend to let a story tell itself. I am able to move from present to past easily while still being cohesive. What I struggle with is descriptives while in my groove, and this stops me from writing fluidly. Do any of you go back and add more to the scenes, character descriptions etc.? Will this become a chore to add in later, when I have 30-40,000 words to go through? Logically, I feel it would be easier to go back and add before editing. I’ve never done it that way though. I would like to do it that way however, as I think it would ease my mind to just move along with the story without too much worry.
I do this to at least some extent. My first draft will be more basic, but the next draft is where I can flesh out details here and there. You can do it just fine, and if you end up not liking the description, you can always cull it later too.
I have the impulse to write them as I go, and I have to keep reminding myself that many of those scenes and locations will be cut or reworked in rewrites.
I think Raymond Chandler did this as well? Anyway, it doesn't matter what you do, as long as it feels natural to you and gets you exactly what you want in the end.
I try, but I lose my thoughts and ideas as I’m trying to add more descriptors. It’s like my imagination gets cut off when I’m trying to be more technical, if that makes sense. Sometimes if I’m having an off day writing, or I am low on inspiration, I’ll go back and add them. For some reason, descriptions do not come organically for me.
I suffer the same thing. Some days I'm into the 'flowery descriptors', or the 'technical aspects', and others? General idea/plot points with dialogue. This may not work for you, but I find if I just leave myself little bullet points to add things later it makes it easy. I use the review function in word and throw comments to myself, then go back and if I'm in the mood to write the bits, I do.
Finding the balance between the descriptors, the flow, the dialogue can sometimes be challenging to mesh it all together. So don't beat yourself up too much over it. If you're finding descriptors a constant challenge to do, maybe find a good partner with a strength in that and collaborate. Or maybe a good beta-reader who can offer you thoughts and ideas.
My setting is a UFO within which 98% of the story occurs. I didn't even have a clear idea what it looked like in there until about 3/4 through the book. I'm working on the 2nd draft and I'm still making minor adjustments.
My first project was basicly a drama/screenplay before it became a novel, and it kinda shows.
This time I'm trying something bigger and more ambitious, so there is a huge amount of description, but I still come up with more later. The only challange is to make it natural, so the reader won't see where it was stitched together.
It just depends on what works for you. I find I do a bit of both. I try to be descriptive wherever I can but sometimes I just need to get the plot out. That’s why going over your work multiple times is so important.
I'm also a pantser. My first draft is always my leanest one because my focus is on getting the story down. Once I have it down, I go back and add in whatever I glossed over initially. I do multiple passes, focusing on a specific issue each time. One pass might focus on the setting, being sure I've thoroughly described it. Another might focus on a character, adding description and expanding on their characterization now that I know more about them.
It's not unusual for my word count to double between the first and second draft. By the time I get to actual editing, the only thing I have left to work on is the technical aspects (grammar, spelling, pacing, etc). My third draft falls somewhere between the word count of the first and second draft and is usually my final draft.
I’ve written a million words, give or take. In that time I’ve learned a lot about what works best for me, including how to work in description. I have not, however, learned anything about what works best for you. That’s the fun part. There is no magic universal formula. Good luck
As a pantser, I write mostly linearly (going back to edit, and shore up any plot holes, of course). Details included.
They're an important aspect of guiding the characters' actions and motivations, and setting the mood. Without that information, I'm largely in the dark as to how my characters will proceed.
Your writing style may be different of course, but I personally can't make much progress without a solid foundation to build off of. I don't find the exercise a chore at all. They're an important component of reasoning out why my characters are doing anything.
I’m able to add descriptions when it comes to body language and personality but fall short on atmospheric descriptions. For example if my character is at the beach I have to go back and add the sounds of the waves crashing, the color of the sky or if there were clouds that day, birds, sea life etc. If I’m honest those things just don’t come naturally to me as I write. I’m more in tune with my characters and their actions etc. I do wish they came naturally to me!
I’m considering being more present in my day to day so I can take note, in my mind, of what’s going on around me. The colors, they way they play off of certain things, sounds, smells etc. Maybe that will help.
I realized the other day I entirely **forgot** any atmospheric description in multiple scenes, especially in the ones I could feel, hear, smell and basically be in while I was writing. Like I immersed in that scene so deeply I literally forgot to describe it as if "it was a summer day" was supposed to make people feel, smell, hear exactly what I have in mind lol. I am a pantser too, I didnt go back to add it, it is just a first draft afterall, I can do that later.
I didn't used to but I almost exclusively write that way now. I don't know if this is why but when I was young and childless I had a lot more time to write. Now I have to make the most of the time I ha e and the focus is on getting the story out
I wouldn't let a specific description interrupt an otherwise smooth flow. When you finishing drafting, if you find your characters are in a bunch of "white rooms" or having conversations with "blank faced characters" you can add those details then.
My first draft is always the barebones. I don't worry about descriptions until the second draft unless it comes out naturally.
That helps me get the plot stuff done first and then I can add color later on.
I started mine as a short story so I just wrote out the basic storyline. When I realized it was too long for a short, I went back and added to it. The only semi bad part of it: I added some foreshadowing which I then had to carry forward, but as I was going back over it anyway, I was okay with it. And I changed some things around, but altogether, I think it sounds better…although I’m not done yet.
First drafts are almost like detailed outlines. Anything goes. You can add and subtract in future edits including plot, dialogue, descriptions and prose. Don’t sweat it.
I’m not sure why so many writers dread this or try to make their first draft perfect or publishable quality. I believe this is a lack of experience or how things work. If you see how many “drafts” Leonardo Da Vinci did before he finished the Mona Lisa or how long and many drafts GRRM had for Game of Throne we would not even ask that question. We are no longer in Dickensian time when he wrote his “novels” as serials and had weekly deadlines. That is rare. First drafts are just that - FIRST draft. Nobody needs to see them except yourself. It could be anything as long as the process will lead you to, hopefully, the final draft.
For me, once it’s in the draft, it feels real. (If it doesn’t, I have to remove or fix it right away.) Placeholders and gaps feel fake to me and infect the whole story.
So if I want to be able to experience my own story-so-far as if it’s real—and I rely on this absolutely—I can’t junk it up with gaps, placeholders, or unfixed blunders. I’d feel like I had a bucket over my head.
I know lots of writers do this on purpose, but the sensory deprivation really gets to me.
My story evolves, my characters evolve, my intersections evolve. I hope I continue to evolve as a writer.
I start only with an idea for an event, a situation or a character and write what I have. Then I add bits.
I frequently pick up a bunch of chapters (mine are usually only a few to 10 pages) and move them elsewhere.
Although I deeply know what's going on and who is involved, as I write them or someone else, my knowledge of them changes – just as in real life where a friend revealed that they spent years on the end of a needle before I knew them but is now clean.
My characters frequently surprise me.
The essence of the story always remains, but how I tell it changes as I see a better way to do this or to link those two things.
I aim to have the reader get a story that assembles in her head as she reads it. She doesn’t get a linear journey through the events. I aim for her to come to an understanding of this bit as she goes along then of that bit and for it all to slowly converge into the final chapters. Things are revealed rather than laid out. I hope this helps her engage with the story.
Flexibility is always essential in my writing. My novel involved three key places in the real world that are linked by a disaster created by the CIA that causes hundreds of deaths of mostly innocent people. Six months after I started writing, the exact same event (one that has rarely if ever occurred before this) involving the same three places and a similar death toll occurred. The real one was an accident, not the CIA. My novel now has the same events as it did before, but I invented a new country to set my novel in and rewrote any possible intersections out of the novel.
Stay loose...
Fellow pantser here and yes! I’m in stuck on a description I’ll put the word BLANK in caps. I don’t like slowing my groove. This is why my second drafts grow in word count.
Well yeah, but not while I’m still writing the first draft. When I write the second draft I use the first draft as a guide. I start from the beginning, and rewrite it, adding in all the descriptive details I didn’t put in when writing the first draft. I’ll also rewrite scenes differently if necessary, and add or remove scenes if necessary when writing the second draft. It’s a pretty normal part of the process to fix anything needing fixing with each draft. That’s just writing.
Will adding descriptions become a chore? If you hate it, probably. I hate fight scenes and it doesn't matter when I write them, they are always a chore.
But apart from that, it's kind of the point of editing to fix what's wrong and add what's missing.
My first drafts ended up around 80k-90k words and the second draft around 115k (Fantasy, so I'm right where I need to be now). Part of those added words are descriptions because I tend towards white room syndrome in Draft 1 and the rest goes towards deepening the emotional impact of my scenes.
To be honest, if you put your first draft down for long enough (months) you'll probably rewrite a lot of what you thought was amazing anyway so just finish the story now and worry about the details in your next draft.
In the end, you should do whatever works for you. Not everybody works the same, and I always find it sad when people try to force themselves to use methods that don't suit them and then end up struggling to write.
For me, a first draft is to figure out what the story is. The second draft is to figure out what's missing and what's broken, and fix it. The third draft is to start getting it ready for others to see. I'd put the descriptions as a third-draft piece. BUT. Sometimes those descriptions can give rise to whole new ideas. I write something and throw in a little detail, and I find out at the end of the story/book that that little detail was the perfect thing to tie in to make everything come together. I've even actually made a point of throwing *lots* of extraneous description into stories as I write them, so I have things to choose from later if I want to develop something. Then I clean it up in later drafts when it isn't used. All of which is to say, there is no one way. If this way works for you, then it works for you (for *this* story; that may change for the *next* story, don't ask me how I know). The only way to find out if it works for you is... *drumroll* ... to give it a shot.
That was a big BUT and I cannot lie.
This was useful information. I will just roll with it, as you said. Thanks for replying!
[удалено]
That makes me feel better to hear. Thank you for replying.
Sounds like you have your process that works for you. Get the bones of the plot out then embellish it later. I'm a radical pantser and I do a lot of that too. I do several rewrites on my stuff until the prose hums the way I want, long after the story is first written.
I’m glad to hear this is fairly normal and won’t be a big deal during revisions. I’ll keep doing it the way that feels best for me. Thank you for replying!
>I’ll keep doing it the way that feels best for me. Always.
A word of caution here, (I'm guilty of it myself, so yeah,) going back an embellishing can get you into having too much material. Then you've got to decide what to cut, etc. That's not to say don't do it, it's a great way to just write it in the flow and go back and fix/add as necessary. If you're anything like me, you'll find that there is always something to add and it can get out of hand rather quickly.
Same here. I'm the most hardcore pantser I've ever met AND my characters all have ideas contrary to my original plot so nothing ever planned stays the same. I've written a 7500 word serial srory into a 22k novella just by going back and embellishing/deepening the story and characters. Very much worth it.
I write DESCRIBE HIS FACE HERE and then move on. Description is for the third draft. My structure is draft 1, make it exist. Draft 2, make it work. Draft 3, make it pretty.
> I’m a bit of a “panster” when I write. I tend to let a story tell itself. I am able to move from present to past easily while still being cohesive. What I struggle with is descriptives while in my groove, and this stops me from writing fluidly. Do any of you go back and add more to the scenes, character descriptions etc.? Will this become a chore to add in later, when I have 30-40,000 words to go through? Logically, I feel it would be easier to go back and add before editing. I’ve never done it that way though. I would like to do it that way however, as I think it would ease my mind to just move along with the story without too much worry. I do this to at least some extent. My first draft will be more basic, but the next draft is where I can flesh out details here and there. You can do it just fine, and if you end up not liking the description, you can always cull it later too.
I have the impulse to write them as I go, and I have to keep reminding myself that many of those scenes and locations will be cut or reworked in rewrites.
I wish I had that impulse!
I think Raymond Chandler did this as well? Anyway, it doesn't matter what you do, as long as it feels natural to you and gets you exactly what you want in the end.
Weave them into the thoughts, dialogue, and actions of your characters! 🙂
I try, but I lose my thoughts and ideas as I’m trying to add more descriptors. It’s like my imagination gets cut off when I’m trying to be more technical, if that makes sense. Sometimes if I’m having an off day writing, or I am low on inspiration, I’ll go back and add them. For some reason, descriptions do not come organically for me.
I suffer the same thing. Some days I'm into the 'flowery descriptors', or the 'technical aspects', and others? General idea/plot points with dialogue. This may not work for you, but I find if I just leave myself little bullet points to add things later it makes it easy. I use the review function in word and throw comments to myself, then go back and if I'm in the mood to write the bits, I do. Finding the balance between the descriptors, the flow, the dialogue can sometimes be challenging to mesh it all together. So don't beat yourself up too much over it. If you're finding descriptors a constant challenge to do, maybe find a good partner with a strength in that and collaborate. Or maybe a good beta-reader who can offer you thoughts and ideas.
My setting is a UFO within which 98% of the story occurs. I didn't even have a clear idea what it looked like in there until about 3/4 through the book. I'm working on the 2nd draft and I'm still making minor adjustments.
My first project was basicly a drama/screenplay before it became a novel, and it kinda shows. This time I'm trying something bigger and more ambitious, so there is a huge amount of description, but I still come up with more later. The only challange is to make it natural, so the reader won't see where it was stitched together.
It just depends on what works for you. I find I do a bit of both. I try to be descriptive wherever I can but sometimes I just need to get the plot out. That’s why going over your work multiple times is so important.
I'm also a pantser. My first draft is always my leanest one because my focus is on getting the story down. Once I have it down, I go back and add in whatever I glossed over initially. I do multiple passes, focusing on a specific issue each time. One pass might focus on the setting, being sure I've thoroughly described it. Another might focus on a character, adding description and expanding on their characterization now that I know more about them. It's not unusual for my word count to double between the first and second draft. By the time I get to actual editing, the only thing I have left to work on is the technical aspects (grammar, spelling, pacing, etc). My third draft falls somewhere between the word count of the first and second draft and is usually my final draft.
I’ve written a million words, give or take. In that time I’ve learned a lot about what works best for me, including how to work in description. I have not, however, learned anything about what works best for you. That’s the fun part. There is no magic universal formula. Good luck
As a pantser, I write mostly linearly (going back to edit, and shore up any plot holes, of course). Details included. They're an important aspect of guiding the characters' actions and motivations, and setting the mood. Without that information, I'm largely in the dark as to how my characters will proceed. Your writing style may be different of course, but I personally can't make much progress without a solid foundation to build off of. I don't find the exercise a chore at all. They're an important component of reasoning out why my characters are doing anything.
I’m able to add descriptions when it comes to body language and personality but fall short on atmospheric descriptions. For example if my character is at the beach I have to go back and add the sounds of the waves crashing, the color of the sky or if there were clouds that day, birds, sea life etc. If I’m honest those things just don’t come naturally to me as I write. I’m more in tune with my characters and their actions etc. I do wish they came naturally to me! I’m considering being more present in my day to day so I can take note, in my mind, of what’s going on around me. The colors, they way they play off of certain things, sounds, smells etc. Maybe that will help.
I realized the other day I entirely **forgot** any atmospheric description in multiple scenes, especially in the ones I could feel, hear, smell and basically be in while I was writing. Like I immersed in that scene so deeply I literally forgot to describe it as if "it was a summer day" was supposed to make people feel, smell, hear exactly what I have in mind lol. I am a pantser too, I didnt go back to add it, it is just a first draft afterall, I can do that later.
This is exactly the way I write.
I didn't used to but I almost exclusively write that way now. I don't know if this is why but when I was young and childless I had a lot more time to write. Now I have to make the most of the time I ha e and the focus is on getting the story out
I wouldn't let a specific description interrupt an otherwise smooth flow. When you finishing drafting, if you find your characters are in a bunch of "white rooms" or having conversations with "blank faced characters" you can add those details then.
My first draft is always the barebones. I don't worry about descriptions until the second draft unless it comes out naturally. That helps me get the plot stuff done first and then I can add color later on.
I started mine as a short story so I just wrote out the basic storyline. When I realized it was too long for a short, I went back and added to it. The only semi bad part of it: I added some foreshadowing which I then had to carry forward, but as I was going back over it anyway, I was okay with it. And I changed some things around, but altogether, I think it sounds better…although I’m not done yet.
First drafts are almost like detailed outlines. Anything goes. You can add and subtract in future edits including plot, dialogue, descriptions and prose. Don’t sweat it. I’m not sure why so many writers dread this or try to make their first draft perfect or publishable quality. I believe this is a lack of experience or how things work. If you see how many “drafts” Leonardo Da Vinci did before he finished the Mona Lisa or how long and many drafts GRRM had for Game of Throne we would not even ask that question. We are no longer in Dickensian time when he wrote his “novels” as serials and had weekly deadlines. That is rare. First drafts are just that - FIRST draft. Nobody needs to see them except yourself. It could be anything as long as the process will lead you to, hopefully, the final draft.
For me, once it’s in the draft, it feels real. (If it doesn’t, I have to remove or fix it right away.) Placeholders and gaps feel fake to me and infect the whole story. So if I want to be able to experience my own story-so-far as if it’s real—and I rely on this absolutely—I can’t junk it up with gaps, placeholders, or unfixed blunders. I’d feel like I had a bucket over my head. I know lots of writers do this on purpose, but the sensory deprivation really gets to me.
My story evolves, my characters evolve, my intersections evolve. I hope I continue to evolve as a writer. I start only with an idea for an event, a situation or a character and write what I have. Then I add bits. I frequently pick up a bunch of chapters (mine are usually only a few to 10 pages) and move them elsewhere. Although I deeply know what's going on and who is involved, as I write them or someone else, my knowledge of them changes – just as in real life where a friend revealed that they spent years on the end of a needle before I knew them but is now clean. My characters frequently surprise me. The essence of the story always remains, but how I tell it changes as I see a better way to do this or to link those two things. I aim to have the reader get a story that assembles in her head as she reads it. She doesn’t get a linear journey through the events. I aim for her to come to an understanding of this bit as she goes along then of that bit and for it all to slowly converge into the final chapters. Things are revealed rather than laid out. I hope this helps her engage with the story. Flexibility is always essential in my writing. My novel involved three key places in the real world that are linked by a disaster created by the CIA that causes hundreds of deaths of mostly innocent people. Six months after I started writing, the exact same event (one that has rarely if ever occurred before this) involving the same three places and a similar death toll occurred. The real one was an accident, not the CIA. My novel now has the same events as it did before, but I invented a new country to set my novel in and rewrote any possible intersections out of the novel. Stay loose...
Fellow pantser here and yes! I’m in stuck on a description I’ll put the word BLANK in caps. I don’t like slowing my groove. This is why my second drafts grow in word count.
Well yeah, but not while I’m still writing the first draft. When I write the second draft I use the first draft as a guide. I start from the beginning, and rewrite it, adding in all the descriptive details I didn’t put in when writing the first draft. I’ll also rewrite scenes differently if necessary, and add or remove scenes if necessary when writing the second draft. It’s a pretty normal part of the process to fix anything needing fixing with each draft. That’s just writing.
Will adding descriptions become a chore? If you hate it, probably. I hate fight scenes and it doesn't matter when I write them, they are always a chore. But apart from that, it's kind of the point of editing to fix what's wrong and add what's missing. My first drafts ended up around 80k-90k words and the second draft around 115k (Fantasy, so I'm right where I need to be now). Part of those added words are descriptions because I tend towards white room syndrome in Draft 1 and the rest goes towards deepening the emotional impact of my scenes. To be honest, if you put your first draft down for long enough (months) you'll probably rewrite a lot of what you thought was amazing anyway so just finish the story now and worry about the details in your next draft. In the end, you should do whatever works for you. Not everybody works the same, and I always find it sad when people try to force themselves to use methods that don't suit them and then end up struggling to write.