Clarifications

In my last post I wrote about breaking one of my cardinal rules. I am now in my second draft stage of my new horror story.  For me, the second draft is expanding on the bones I created in the first.  The storyline does not actually change.  It is enhanced by adding tiny little details like in Zombie Apocalypse:Redemption  I've named the levels in the silo after Dante's Inferno.  The circles of hell as someone's idea of a joke.  My main character, Dr. Donna Cairn's lab is on the level "Anger" for the fifth circle of hell.  This is a second draft add in.

I also, in the second edit, fix grammatical errors, extra vowels put in place, some missing words, and double check the pacing.  I was aghast at the amount of these little items in my story.  Fifty in the first thirty pages!  My fingers were really flying on the first draft.  I also add scenes which will heighten the reader's anticipation here and there...just a little jump or rise in their heart rate, if a particular part needs it. Of course back in my typewriter days it was different.  Everything was written in notebooks, crossed through and written over before sitting in front of the typewriter.  Thank God for computers!

It's sort of like high school, when your language teacher asked you to write an outline.  I hated having to do those things even though I think and write linearly. It's 1,2,3, then A,B,C, and then a,b,c.  I approach editing the same way, but not writing.  Strange huh? I write the major events in the story, add very few tidbits of fluff in the first draft although some scenes are pretty fleshed out they could use some uphm.

I've talked with thousands of authors over the years and each have their own approach to writing.  Some have to have a precise outline and follow it down the line to the end-every line perfectly the way they want them.  Others will write scenes in full and then later sew them all together-each scene is perfect. Others, like me, write from beginning to end and then from the bare bones expand and edit.  There are probably a thousand ways writers approach stories.  This is just mine.

How do you write?

Keep writing and loving the Lord.