Writing the draft of a book manuscript, story, stage play or screenplay is often the hardest part of the writing process. It's like slogging uphill in wet snow, very slow. Alternately, it can be an overload of twists and turns. With an open mind it's lots of fun. This is the time to do research, follow ideas and listen to the characters.
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At first I spend a lot of time doing research and staring at walls as movies of the mind bounce around my skull. Free or freestyle thinking opens up many paths. Historical facts about the stories or events help shape plot and characters. For the first few days of a novel I write about a paragraph a day. Whee. But there's a lot going on in the background.
Soon it's a comfortable pace of about 2,000 words per day as plot lines fall into place and characters demand to be heard. It escalates to 5,000 wpd, depending on motivation.
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If research isn't your thing, hire someone to do it. Even a contemporary novel needs a setting and unless it all takes place inside the writer's head, some details have to be accurate. Within historical limits or not, a spontaneous flight of fancy can also lead in intriguing new directions.
It's important not to take the draft too seriously. Ernest Hemingway famously said, "The first draft of anything is shit." It can all be resolved in the re-write or edit. We have handy delete buttons and moving text is a breeze. Imagine carving every word in stone or working by hand in candle light on long winter nights by a meager fire.
My approach is to complete the draft, then edit three or four (or five) times, a process of steamrolling. Each time it's run over it, more lumps are smoothed out. Sometimes it's more like a jackhammer. The draft gets it loosely together. It's during the edits you can really have fun with words.
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How many drafts to write depends on the author and the work. Leo Tolstoy rewrote 'War and Peace', a vast novel of about 1,225 pages or 587,287 words, ten times by hand. In candlelight. Every writing process is different, from one author to another or one work to another. We find our stride and run with it.
Originally I wrote a lot in point form. Today I just write. Complete sentences are easier to work with even if hackneyed. Too many details can also confuddle a reader or writer. It's important to keep moving forward. Second-guessing or overthinking can send any author into a death spiral of self-doubt.
Sylvia Rose Art on Zazzle
Sylvia Rose Books on Smashwords
Reiker For Hire Murder Mysteries
Lora Ley Fantasy Fiction Books
What's most important is to finish the darn thing. As long as there's a beginning, middle and end in some kind of order, it's workable. Starting from nothing, merely a thought, the writer has created inroads to a new reality. This world takes shape as ideas solidify, characters flesh out and amazing connections happen.