amwriting

Devil Deal Novel Draft #3 Word Count – By The Numbers

May 30, 2014 by Nick Bryan

All on target this week, as I sailed through the final stages of Novel Draft The Third. This will be a familiar tone to regular readers of this blog, most writing updates in the last month or two have broken down to: “Today I reached another book milestone!”

But just to reiterate what it all means: I am now at the point where I will show my book to some other humans. I’ve recruited a few volunteers from my writing group and personal life, now just gotta email it over to them. Once I’ve plucked up the courage to tackle Scrivener’s sometimes-horrific ebook compiling options.

Anyway. In a bid to keep the blogs interesting, I’m going to run some actual stats for the whole project, to see how much I cut, where it went, what it all means, etc. Will the numbers tell me anything of worth?

I don’t know, as I haven’t generated any of them at the time of writing this intro. Better go do that now.

THE BIG ONE: Total Word Count

First up, and most tedious to calculate as Scrivener clunks and struggles when putting a whole novel of scenes together: the total word counts of the three drafts.

First draft: 99,165 words.
Second draft: 94,923 words. (4,242 words shorter.)
Third draft: 90,605 words. (4,318 words shorter.)
Total cuts: 8,560 words. (8.63% of first draft total.)

The good news: I almost cut out ten percent of the novel, which I’m sure someone said was a good baseline amount to chop. It’s a good bit shorter anyway – a relief, as there were times I thought I wasn’t making much difference in length terms.

Much more surprising is the news that I removed more (just) with my second big pass than I did the first. During that draft, I chopped out, rewrote and condensed whole scenes, whereas the one I just finished was merely me picking through it line by line, improving flabby prose, reading it out to myself – generally beautifying the fucker before I let beta readers have it. Because if the main beta feedback is “You used the word actually too much, actually,” it won’t be hugely useful.

Does this mean I have more to do in terms of second-draft plot refining stuff? Possibly. But I’m in such a love-hate spin with the whole book after four months of intensive editing, I’d rather like to get some other opinions to bat against before doing any more sweeping changes.

Scale of Offcuts – The Butchery Index

And now, a stat I find compelling, but others may not. Let’s find out together.I have a Scrivener directory called Offcuts where I collect any scene I’m removing, rewriting, substantially changing or any other degree of alterations beyond minor text-picking. I don’t want to delete them, in case they’re one day called into service (in this project or another), but it’s possible they will never see the light of day.

The size of this directory at the various stages was…

First draft: 3,906 words.
Second draft: 43,924 words. (3,906 more.)
Third draft: 43,924 words. (Yes, it’s the same.)

Wow. That is a lot of unused flesh. Nearly a whole NaNoWriMo novel, approaching half of the current book length. A lot of it isn’t material that was necessarily deleted, just heavily rewritten, but still. I enjoy looking at this number, it makes me feel like I must have obeyed the editing commandments and killed at least a couple of darlings.

It makes fair sense this wouldn’t change much in the third draft – after all, chopping and changing whole scenes is the preserve of the second. The third was line-by-line stuff, and I have full copies of the first and second draft saved if I desperately need to resurrect them. Constantly resaving the same thing gets silly after a while.

Break it down, down down down…

I have three parts to my novel, because there’s nothing I enjoy more than a rigid beginning, middle and end. So, in the interests of science, how did those change over the three drafts?

PART ONE

First draft: 29,071 words.
Second draft: 29,742 words. (671 words longer.)
Third draft: 28,510 words. (1,232 words shorter.)
Total change: 561 words shorter.

PART TWO

First draft: 35,782 words.
Second draft: 31,817 words. (3,965 words shorter.)
Third draft: 30,394 words. (1,423 words shorter.)
Total change: 5,388 words shorter.

PART THREE

First draft: 34,287 words.
Second draft: 33,339 words. (948 words shorter.)
Third draft: 31,676 words. (1,663 words shorter.)
Total cuts: 2,611 words shorter.

To my not-particular-surprise, the middle part took it hardest. I did a lot of work tightening that up, because it was flabby and because that’s where there’s always the most waste, in my experience of stories. I rewrote a couple of whole chapters, pulled a few bits in and out. Interestingly, the first part grew slightly longer in the second draft, I guess I did expand a plot point.

Most impressive, though: I took a similar amount of words from each part during the third draft, which demonstrates I have roughly the same amount of useless bibble in any given bit of writing.

Dates to celebrate in later years

Just out of interest, based mostly on Scrivener folder creation dates…

First draft started: 11th April 2013
First draft finished: 24th November 2013 (Draft time: 7 months and 13 days.)
Second draft started: 3rd January 2014
Second draft finished: 30th April 2014 (Draft time: 3 months and 27 days.)
Third draft started: 1st May 2014
Third draft finished: 28th May 2014 (Draft time: 27 days.)
Three-draft time: 1 year, 1 month and 17 days.

And that’s with December and February basically off the job, working on other projects and/or Christmas. I was editor of a TV website for the whole of 2013 too. I have this dream of hammering out another whole first draft before the end of this year, but we’ll get back to that in later blogs.

For now, considering it was once a hundred thousand words long, I’m considering this an okay effort. Good head of speed towards the end there.

Okay, did I miss anything?

That’s probably numbers aplenty for today, considering this is a novel draft only a small percentage of you will ever read. But if this tells you anything about my writing achievements and helps you compare/contrast/feel good about your own, that is excellent.

If there are any obscure stats I haven’t run which you would be interested in (or think I would be), give me a shout in the comments. Make sure to show your full working, I’m a simple soul using Windows Calculator.

My Writing Music – Songs to mash the keyboard to

May 27, 2014 by Nick Bryan

Some writers don’t listen to music while they work, needing constant silence to produce their genius. However, I require an endless rolling soundtrack to drown out the screaming choirs of my own insanity (10 points for knowing where I stole that last phrase from), so I get through a lot of tracks.

A lot of the choices go in phases – new records come out, or I fancy immersing myself in the music of one artist, so I load my phone up with their albums. Then I listen to this person exclusively for a while, until I’m sick of them and don’t want to hear anything they’ve done for months.

A few songs/sounds do survive the gap though – elevate themselves above the flighty phases and become evergreen presences. Here, then, are my perpetual audio companions. Apologies if a few of them turn out to be part of temporary phases and I’m just blinded by momentary love.

Warren Ellis – SPEKTRMODULE

SPEKTRMODULE is an irregular ambient music podcast by British comics/novels writer Warren Ellis and is rarely far from my writing playlist. It helps that there’s loads of it and new ones sometimes slip out, but even with that, it’s a good soundtrack. A nice combination of atmospheric and relaxing, and always my first go-to when I don’t feel like listening to music with lyrics.

You can see all the episodes in their category on his blog, or subscribe to the iTunes feed here. Well worth a look.

In other beepy/electronic music, I sometimes listen to the Social Network and Girl With The Dragon Tattoo soundtracks by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, but they’re a little too scary to relax into.

Gorillaz – The Fall

This is the lesser-known fourth Gorillaz album, the one with less budget, very few famous guest artists and sparse/instrumental songs recorded on an iPad about Damon Albarn’s loneliness while touring America.

It didn’t top the charts like other cartoon monkey records, but it is great writing soundtrack material. Haunting and driving in equal measure. And just in general, if you like a good Blur/Albarn song, there are some nice ones on here, especially Little Pink Plastic Bags, The Parish of Space Dust and Amarillo.

The new Damon Albarn solo album Everyday Robots is pretty too, though a bit too languid for work-motivating purposes – in my opinion, at least.And to complete this segment, here’s the excellent song Amarillo in YouTube form.

R.E.M. – Up

I really like R.E.M., for which I blame their total ubiquity on my parents’ stereo when I was younger. Although considering they and Blur/Gorillaz are two of my favourite artists, it’s also possible I like music where the focus is just as much on the clever lyrics as the songs – this might be a writer trait? I don’t know. Someone tell me I’m normal, for god’s sake.

Putting self-analysis aside, a lot of R.E.M.’s stuff is hooky, attention-seeking indie-rock and not always ideal background work music. The album Up, however, shifted towards whispering, downbeat stuff or, even on the less grim songs, a swirl of noise rather than louder, more straightforward indie.

A music-minded person might say this is the album where R.E.M. most tried to replicate their good friends in Radiohead, but either way, this album really works for me as writing music. More so than most Radiohead stuff, actually, although Kid A does come out when I’m hitting the misery juice hard.And now, for a sample, the song Suspicion which I’ve always found pretty lovely.

Honourable Mentions

At this point, there is a risk of hitting some stuff that’s just a phase. For example, the new Elbow album The Take-Off And Landing Of Everything has lasted well, but I imagine it won’t be with me forever. Their classic The Seldom Seen Kid is a bit of an evergreen though.

Every year for a while now, around the time the sun comes out, I pull out The Duckworth Lewis Method album, and their 2013 release Sticky Wickets has joined it this time. Good times, very seasonal, if sometimes a bit loud and jangly for heavy work deadlines.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to most things we’ve talked about so far, I sometimes like a little higher-energy pop music, especially when crashing out first drafts. I’ve got the three-disc Genesis Platinum Collection for a lot of this, for better or worse. Also: the second Little Boots album Nocturnes, which really deserved more attention, and The Bones Of What You Believe by CHVRCHES.

That’s probably enough music to be getting on with – what can I say, after following Kieron Gillen on Tumblr for long enough, you start to think about the role of music in your writing. If you have any recommendations in a similar vein, feel free to leave them in the comments below. Ambient stuff in the style of SPEKTRMODULE would be particularly interesting to me – need a precise level of atmospheric but not too attention-grabbing.

I AM NOT A NUMBER (but my novel editing progress is and I can’t stop looking at it)

May 9, 2014 by Nick Bryan

This week, threatened as recently as last week, I launched into the third draft of my constantly-in-progress novel. This is the phase where I trawl through the entire text of the book, picking at individual words and trying to get it to the stage where I’m willing to share it with my elite team of beta readers.

ASIDE: If you want to join said elite team, email me and volunteer, or contact me using any other method available to you. All viable humans considered, especially those able to read a book in 1-2 months and provide feedback more detailed than “Yeah, it was okay.” Beta reading likely to commence in early-to-mid June.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I launched into the editing process, and quickly settled on a method. For more details on said method and its implications for my location, read on…

Editalactus – Mincer Of Words

In a bid to give the words a thorough beating, my “third pass” will actually consist of three passes – one in the cafe with music on, picking at the language and doing any final bits of continuity straightening necessary. After that, I read the whole thing out – yes, with my voice at full volume – which usually serves to find clunky phrasings and stupid repeated words.

Last of all, I run this version through the Hemingway web app, which I think I’ve mentioned here before. This provides one last suggestion of overlong clunky sentences, letting me snip a few more chunks away.

So, that’s what I’m doing. I have nearly a hundred thousand words to feed through this mincer, and in the last week, I’ve managed a third of the novel. Not bad. Probably helps that I’ve spent three whole days in that time doing almost nothing else.

With this in mind, I might be on track to finish by the end of the month, then I can get some opinions and work out how much more work is needed. Must admit, I’ve already found myself eyeing up some bigger changes to the first third, but I’m tempted to let a few other people read it first. Be good to finally get a wider view on this thing rather than keep picking and picking.

Sit still, you idiot.

The down-side of the above-described editing process: I can’t do all of it in the cafe. Specifically, the part where I read out the text to myself. Doesn’t really work in public, people give you odd looks.

For a year or so now, I’ve basically done all my writing in the same Walthamstow cafe. Working at home just hasn’t been productive for me, I’m too prone to wandering off and procrastinating. But I’ve had to force myself through it this time, and although there are still a few hours that got lost in the whirl of talking to myself, the job is getting done.

Maybe one day, I’ll be able to work at home when I don’t have to. Might save me a few quid on coffee, at least.

So yeah, it’s getting done. When I laid out the target of finishing this edit by the end of May, I thought I was being self-punishingly optimistic, but perhaps not? We’ll see if this progress continues in subsequent weeks, I suppose.

WRITEBLOG EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

You may note I’ve stopped numbering my blogs about writing, as there was more or less no point. Sorry to anyone upset by this. I’m a slave to public approval, so feel free to argue the case for numbering in the comments…

Is it me or is there a COMPLETED SECOND draft in here? (WriteBlog #24)

May 2, 2014 by Nick Bryan

Unfortunately, the pun in the title doesn’t really work, as that kind of draft is spelt draught. But enough self-sabotage.

This week, on Wednesday to be precise, I completed the second draft of the novel I’ve been blogging about for ages. So yeah, hit my self-imposed deadline of the end of April by about six hours, go team. Now, this doesn’t mean it’s time to show it to publishing professionals, or indeed other humans at all, but it is a major chunk of work finished, and I’m going to number it as second draft anyway, simply because it gives me a feeling of progress.

So what exactly do I mean by second draft? And what’s next if not showing it to others? Time now for a little pause-and-take-stock in the editing process.

“It’s like running a comb through the forest.”

The second draft, as I’m defining it, involves going through the entire first draft text and trying to turn it into a coherent item, which you could conceivably go through from beginning to end and understand. I’m not saying every detail will be correct or the writing will be beautiful – in fact, that definitely isn’t true – but I have a thing that resembles a story.

More excitingly, it more or less resembles the story I wanted to tell when I started this whole process.In practise, this involved re-ordering or re-writing a lot of scenes, jamming new segments into them, not to mention the heartbreaking deletion of bits which no longer work. My deleted offcuts folder for this project is a terrifying 43,924 words – a lot of work to accept that you may never use.

(Well, there’s one whole deleted chapter which may find a home in some future related project, as I still like it, but the story has shifted and left the poor thing homeless. But aside from that, yup, it’s all being launched into the void to die.)

But at least it sounds like I’ve done something. Plenty of new writing, interesting thoughts about old work, gratifying sense of creation. The best editing experience I’ve yet had. I won’t be showing the first or second drafts to anyone, but one definitely advances the other.So, what’s next?

“It’s like fighting off an ant invasion using a sledgehammer.”

Well, the detailed editing, which I call the third draft because, again, it’s nice to feel like you’re achieving something. The bit where I go through the text in a finer fashion, potentially more than once, trying to get all the sentences to look and sound nice, spot the details which contradict each other, ruthlessly eliminate words like actually and finally which I use every five minutes and are never fucking worth it.

In short, yes, this is the fiddly part many non-writers assume I’m doing when I first start editing. If only.It also includes the always-entertaining section where I read the whole thing out loud to myself, alone in my house, hoping to spot awkward sentence construction and over-used words. The current manuscript is only 94,000 words so hopefully that won’t take too many thousands of hours.

I still live in hope this won’t be a huge chore. The last editing section was surprisingly pleasant, as it was still writing basically, but this really is word-by-word text examination. I’m going to try and push through it relatively quickly to avoid that being too much of a problem – in my dreams, I’m finished by the end of May. In reality, the end of June might be more realistic.

And then. Well, then we really are ready for other people to read the thing. And I’m sure I’ll talk about that when the time comes.

Tune in next week to find out how much/little of a boring task this third drafting really is. And then come back the week after that to see me change my mind.