InsaneJournal

Current mood:	sick
Entry tags:	personal projects, random mental floss

Going over a rough draft can be...rough
I'm looking over chapter one of a rough draft. I knew the story would need to be fixed up, but some of the problems in this story are really worthy of major cringing. I am so glad that no one gets to see my stuff until much later in the production process. Because sometimes, my rough drafts blow and suck at the same time.

I know that eventually, I'll get the errors worked out, but there's some problems with this story that an editor might not know to fix. As an example, a whole page of dialogue that reads well is all very wrong, because the character asking the question to start the conversation is psychic. She should already know the answer, even if the reader doesn't.

The introduction of the bit character's back story had to be completely reworded to become an internal musing of the psychic character instead of a long conversation. I shaved off a half a page in the process, but I would describe most of the dialogue in the book as being in serious need of similar repairs. It's not just that the dialogue runs long. Many times, the dialogue simply starts out wrong for a simple reason like the above example.

I had similar problems with my other stories, so I know it not supposed to be a big deal. Still, I feel annoyed, because in my rough drafts, it doesn't look like I've learned anything at all. I'm still making a lot of the same structural mistakes repeatedly, and my main flaws are always there, no matter how hard I try to write differently. Of course in the revisions, I know about these mistakes,, so I know what to look for and change. But you'd think after this many stories, I might just NOT make those mistakes in the rough drafts anymore. And instead, I'm still writing the same way.

So yeah, I reiterate. I'm so glad that no one reads my rough drafts. -.-

Later...