Last Heir RD & Comparison
LAst Heir rough draft
starting count: 44,846
ending count: 46,591
gain/loss: +1745
Actual (processed) word count: 2106
Total for the Day: 2106
And, done! Whew! Heeee! The Heroes trilogy is now drafted. The last 2 books need a look see for expansion before I can actually begin revisions, but they are done and the last book is being printed and put into its NPB notebook now. WOOOO!
I said I would compare the 3 novels in this trilogy to see if my theory was correct as to why the second 2 novels came up so much shorter than the first. My novel writing process goes through stages -- I supposed you could call each stage a draft or an expansion of the previous stage. Each expansion builds on the previous draft, and I often do each expansion as a kind type over of the previous draft (saving as a different file so I can go backward if I need to).
A.C. was my "learning novel" and helped me develop the process I use (I call it NPB -- Novel Plot Building -- and am writing a book for it). When I created NPB, I initially had 7 phases (8 if you count the foundations stuff, but that's the same for all books in the same series, so no comparison is needed). However, once I finished A.C., I started to play with the process a little, and I combined a few things. For the second 2 books, I ended up with 5 stages. I suspect one of the expansions I dropped, what I call the building draft, may be the reason why my counts on the rough drafts dropped so significantly.
So, here's the comparison:
Books ~>
Expansions (down)
A.C.
Quest
L.H.
plotting form
2075
1920
1894
plotting outline
1373
3167
3848
synopsis narrative
3918
8433
9070
expanded narrative
6871
notes draft
16,846
25,527
23,193
building draft
37,356
rough draft
83,817
57,197
46,591
All 3 came out around the 2k mark for the plotting form. The differences in the outline counts are easy to explain: I was so familiar with A.C. by this time that I only needed to write sketchy notes for the outline. For the other 2 books, the outline has more paragraphs. But, then, the synopsis narratives exploded for the last 2 books, both exceeding even the expanded narrative made for A.C.. The notes drafts also ended up being longer. Then I skip the building draft on both books and the rough drafts ended up considerably shorter.
This may not prove that I need to do both the notes and building drafts to get similar length manuscripts, but I do think it proves that I do need to do both drafts for a healthy sized rough draft.
Does this mean I'm going to go back and develop that draft and rewrite the rough drafts for the second 2 books? No. I have 2 beta readers looking at them. If they can't help me expand the rough drafts, then I might go back and redevelop at least the last expansion. Doing so would still be less than what I had to do to get A.C. done, but I'd rather not have to do them over if I can avoid it. If it comes that, yes; but if I can expand without doing that, I'll take it!
ETA: I have since determined it's probably best to go back to the Notes Draft and create the Building Draft, then rewrite the Rough Draft from there. ;) And, with all the changes in Assassin's, I may have to strip them back further.
starting count: 44,846
ending count: 46,591
gain/loss: +1745
Actual (processed) word count: 2106
Total for the Day: 2106
And, done! Whew! Heeee! The Heroes trilogy is now drafted. The last 2 books need a look see for expansion before I can actually begin revisions, but they are done and the last book is being printed and put into its NPB notebook now. WOOOO!
I said I would compare the 3 novels in this trilogy to see if my theory was correct as to why the second 2 novels came up so much shorter than the first. My novel writing process goes through stages -- I supposed you could call each stage a draft or an expansion of the previous stage. Each expansion builds on the previous draft, and I often do each expansion as a kind type over of the previous draft (saving as a different file so I can go backward if I need to).
A.C. was my "learning novel" and helped me develop the process I use (I call it NPB -- Novel Plot Building -- and am writing a book for it). When I created NPB, I initially had 7 phases (8 if you count the foundations stuff, but that's the same for all books in the same series, so no comparison is needed). However, once I finished A.C., I started to play with the process a little, and I combined a few things. For the second 2 books, I ended up with 5 stages. I suspect one of the expansions I dropped, what I call the building draft, may be the reason why my counts on the rough drafts dropped so significantly.
So, here's the comparison:
Books ~>
Expansions (down)
A.C.
Quest
L.H.
plotting form
2075
1920
1894
plotting outline
1373
3167
3848
synopsis narrative
3918
8433
9070
expanded narrative
6871
notes draft
16,846
25,527
23,193
building draft
37,356
rough draft
83,817
57,197
46,591
All 3 came out around the 2k mark for the plotting form. The differences in the outline counts are easy to explain: I was so familiar with A.C. by this time that I only needed to write sketchy notes for the outline. For the other 2 books, the outline has more paragraphs. But, then, the synopsis narratives exploded for the last 2 books, both exceeding even the expanded narrative made for A.C.. The notes drafts also ended up being longer. Then I skip the building draft on both books and the rough drafts ended up considerably shorter.
This may not prove that I need to do both the notes and building drafts to get similar length manuscripts, but I do think it proves that I do need to do both drafts for a healthy sized rough draft.
Does this mean I'm going to go back and develop that draft and rewrite the rough drafts for the second 2 books? No. I have 2 beta readers looking at them. If they can't help me expand the rough drafts, then I might go back and redevelop at least the last expansion. Doing so would still be less than what I had to do to get A.C. done, but I'd rather not have to do them over if I can avoid it. If it comes that, yes; but if I can expand without doing that, I'll take it!
ETA: I have since determined it's probably best to go back to the Notes Draft and create the Building Draft, then rewrite the Rough Draft from there. ;) And, with all the changes in Assassin's, I may have to strip them back further.