I’ve spent the last two years reading the internet and listening to podcast, attempting to find the most efficient way to write a book with minimal costs. There’s a tremendous amount of information out there. So much, in fact, that you can easily get lost among it. I’ve been diligent in recording what has and hasn’t worked with The Visions of Bezek. As a result, I’ve developed a process that I’ll be applying for future projects. If you’re interested in learning about it, or trying to find your own way, I’ll be laying out the process over the following months.
I call my process the Nine Drafts Process. It lays out clear steps to go from concept to a ready to publish book. Each step is a different draft serving a specific set of purposes along the way. The drafts are:
Conceptual
Outline
Flat
Focused
Polished
Proofing
Formatted
Testing
Final
In part one, we discussed the necessary software for writing a book. If you missed it, you can find part one here. In part two, we discuss the Conceptual Draft.
The Conceptual Draft is the first step in the Nine Draft process. Most people will find this to be the easiest part of the process. It starts with an idea. Everyone has them, but the key here is to record your idea.
Often, I’ll have an idea for a creative work at an inconvenient time. The thought will hit me on my drive to work or in the middle of watching a movie with my wife. Fortunately, we live in an era with cell phones, so I have a note taking app on my phone. That’s where a lot of my ideas find their first home, but others are written on scrapes of paper or still kept in my head. That's not a good way to organize ideas.
I’ve found the best practice is to accumulate all those notes into a Lead Document for that project. As I mentioned in part one, Microsoft Word will do the trick. This document doesn’t have to be anything fancy. It’s basically just a physical representation of brainstormed ideas for a specific project. Recognize that you’re not tied down to anything you write here. There’s no commitment. Efficiently collecting your ideas for a story is the goal. You can add information or remove information as you please. Sometimes my Lead Document only starts with a few bullet points and other times it’s a sizeable chunk of the story. Either way, it’s recorded for future use.
If you’re like me, you think of ideas for new stories before you finish your current work in progress. As a result, I’ve started several Lead Documents over the years. When I’m ready to start something new, they’ll be there to pick from. Some of them have been brewing for a while. You can add to them anytime you have an idea for that project. The longer it brews, the more you'll have to work with.
As you become more serious about the project, you’ll want to target some additional information for the Conceptual Draft. This is an excellent time to consider themes, character growth, story direction, plot points, and audience/reader expectations.
Below, I’m going to put together an example of a Lead Document. For some reason, I have Harry Potter on my mind, so I’m going to use that as a bit of a starting point.
EXAMPLE:
FILE NAME: HP Inspired Lead Doc
CONTENTS:
Harry Potter Inspired, boy with a mark, parents are gone, has the potential for special powers. No magic school.
Boy has a mark, like Harry has a bolt on his head. Instead of Voldemort being a separate entity, he’s a dark entity sealed into the mark. He took over the boy’s body at some point and controlled the boy.
The boy killed his parents while possessed, but doesn’t remember it.
Theme: Self-Confidence. As the boy loses self-confidence, the power of the entity sealed within the mark gains more control.
Theme: knowing who you are. If the boy doesn’t know who he is, the entity can control him.
Character growth. The boy learns to be confident after learning that his lack of confidence allowed the dark entity to control him and kill his parents.
Plot points.
Life without remembering the past
Incident at school
Boy looks into the death of his parents and finds dark secrets
Foster parents are at risk / school at risk
Will the boy reign in the darkness
The story leads you to believe that another party killed the parents. It’ll be a twist to find out that the boy killed his own parents.
The boy’s personality should not lead the audience to know he has a dark side.
Do the foster parents know?
And that’s how my stories start out. The key here is to collect your ideas. I’m not locked into anything by this document.
That’s all I’ve got for part two. Next time, we’ll discuss the Outline Draft. I hope this helps. Thanks for reading!
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