A question about drafts

[rodlox]

.
This may be second nature or a beginners-level question, but it concerns a subject I've never really dealt with before:

first and second drafts.

question:

Comments

[girl_wonder]

Well, it's your writing, so you're obligated to keep or get rid of whatever you want.

Personally, when I write, I use my first draft as a frame and then whatever second or third drafts happen afterwards, it's all either added on or deleted from.

However, I know people who write an entirely different second draft.

[rodlox]

(I edited it - a bit late, granted - to include a reasoning)

>whatever you want.
problem is, though, I don't know what I want - I like all the drafts. but they contradict each other, so I can't simply merge them.

>a frame
that's what I should've done. (I think I tried, but I didn't try very hard, and it grew like kudzu out of control; when I couldn't edit/trim it back down, I tried to prune it into another draft, which went another direction entirely)

thank you for your suggestions; it'll help.

[inamac]

For me, it depends on the story. Sometimes the finished version will be fairly close to the first draft. Sometimes (quite a lot recently, for some reason) I'll change the POV or the tenses for later drafts if the story works better that way (that's when paragraphs from the first version need most revision), and sometimes I'll ditch the whole first draft and start again.

My hard drive has a number of the latter type of first drafts hanging around in the hope that they may contribute something to a different story in the future.

I have no idea how you know... sorry.

[rodlox]

>sorry.
no need to apologize - your answer was helpful.

[lil_shepherd]

Personally, things have changed since I started using a computer more. Originally, I would do three drafts - one which consisted of notes in a 'little brown notebook', then a good draft in longhand on ruled paper with a line left between for written corrections, then a final typed (and later word-processed) copy. I've done a 300,000 word manuscript this way. I kept all the drafts for a long time, though for my fan fiction they tended to go once the fanzine was printed. (Yes, that long ago.)

Nowadays, though the 'start it in bits in notebooks' is still my opening gambit, the real first draft goes onto computer, and I tend delete drafts when the whole folder gets too unwieldy, though I do tend to hold onto bits that I think might be used elsewhere. I print out and correct on the printout, and keep that only until I make a new printout.

I may decide to change points of view or tense, and in which case I will probably keep the old draft. I also recycle unpublished fanfic ideas into original fiction...

[sabaceanbabe]

Answering purely in regard to me and my own writing, I do not feel obligated to keep anything. What stays in a story is what belongs to that story. I've removed entire pages from a fic, which is sometimes quite painful, because they don't belong. And I can usually tell when soemthing doesn't belong by the way I can't get past it to keep telling the story. When something becomes a roadblock for the story, I cut it. Every once in a while it becomes another fic of its own, and sometimes bits and pieces of what's been cut show up in other parts of the story, but usually when I cut something, it's gone.

As for earlier drafts, they're never a waste of time. They help me to work out kinks in the real story, even if they never see the light of day.

[rodlox]

>They help me to work out kinks in the real story, even if they never see the light of day.
that's a salve/relief - to know I haven't been wasting my time writing down wrong alleys.

thank you.