On Novel Drafts (and Trails)

Also: Popup Villages, Havoc Art, and Y2K Aesthetics

After a year, I finally finished draft 1 of my new novel. It finally feels like there’s a good story here from front to back.

Synopsis:

After the biggest social media site is hacked and everyone’s private messages is leaked, Rachel has to navigate her husband’s affair and her own sense of justice in the aftermath of a world whose private lives had suddenly become public. It tackles themes of privacy, transparency, consent, forgiveness, and justice. When do our own needs take precedent over those of others?

After I finished my self-published debut in 2020, I’ve written two drafts of a sequel, both of which I didn’t enjoy. Granted, both of those drafts were written during NaNoWriMo, so the goal was to get it done in a month versus writing something good.

Regardless, when you write novel-length works, you tend to think about drafts and the writing process a lot. In broad strokes, here’s how I approach drafts.

Draft 1:

Photo by Jackson Blackhurst on Unsplash

Draft 1 is the process of clearing a forest for a trail. You’ve looked at your map (some idea or outline), you know where to start, and you started the trek, clearing the trail of story branches and plot obstacles. You ending with *a* trail from point A to point B. If someone were to walk it they would arrive at *a* destination. If I gave someone Draft 1, they would find there’s a full story here. But, generally, you might only ask your family or friends to try the trail.

In this process you aren’t focusing on making it neat, walkable, and necessarily easily to follow. You might put down some signage and perhaps reinforce some parts of the trail, but it’s not yet the primary focus. Metaphorically, this means that I don’t focus heavily on things like style, word choice, rhythm, and detail. But, during the writing process, you might add a paragraph that inspires you to write more lyrically, or go off on a tangent that describes a scene whose purpose is to add flavour and feeling. But, ultimately, the entire first goal is to just have *a* story. My first drafts are usually shorter than a second draft. My 1st draft came in quite short at 35,000 (while novels are usually at minimum 40,000).

Draft 2:

As Neil Gaiman once said (paraphrasing): a 2nd draft is where you rewrite it as if you knew what you were doing all along. My goal of a 2nd draft is to retread the trail I’ve laid down and ensure that if the first public walkers were to come along that it be in a shape that if you’ve left it at that point, it would remain a good and decent trail. Maybe that means you cut a bit here and there, or you divert the trail to a more scenic section. It entails laying down perhaps wooden logs for support along muddy hills and making sure that signage is visible and legible. Metaphorically, it means that I’m focused on adding feeling to the scenes and ensuring that it all hangs together in a way that works well. Here, I let my guard down a bit and also add flavour where I see it. I’m quite a visual writer: I see the scenes quite vividly, but my reader doesn’t. So, here I add in those flairs and focus on word choice and rhythm.

For example, here’s two tricks I use: the narrator voice and bouba/kiki word choices.

The narrator voice trick is to read the work aloud in order to listen to potentially awkward repetition of words and sentences that struggle with rhythm. Natural storytelling flow stems from an almost song-like rhythm in writing. If I struggle here, I always imagine the storyteller around the fire and wonder how they would phrase this section.

Word-choice is also important, because word-choice can influence feeling. A simple way to describe it is to follow the natural inclination of bouba/kiki words.

The concept of bouba & kiki is interesting. Given the two shapes above, people were asked across cultures which one was bouba and which one was kiki and most agreed. The round one is bouba and the spiked one is kiki. There seems to be an inherent relationship between certain sounds and what it makes people feel and think (“sound symbolism”).

Word choice can be hugely complex and myriad, but sometimes simply focusing on scenes as being bouba or kiki can help inform how it makes the reader feel. Depending on the context, Bouba word choice can be: positive, warm, wholesome, and loving. Kiki word choice can be: sharp, aggressive, bright, and anxious.

An example:

• Rachel vomited into the toilet bowl.

• Rachel released last night’s meal into the ceramic receptacle.

The latter sentence is more kiki and conjures a more acidic and sharp tone that intensifies the revulsion.

These are simplified examples of heuristics I use to ensure that the story *feels* they I want to it to feel. Every writer here has their own patterns, habits, and tricks here. Don Winslow looks at the shape of words.

“The other goofy thing I do is I sit or even stand back from the computer screen so that I can see the shape of the words but not the words themselves. Then I ask myself, “Does it look like what it is?” If it’s a sequence where I want to grab the reader and not let the reader go then it needs to look dense. But at times I want the reader to focus on a certain word or a certain image and pause there, and then I need a lot of white space around those words or images so that there will be a little space for that image to exist.”

At the end of draft 2, the intent is that the novel should be considered complete. If left here, it would be able to be released into the world. It’s initially complete and finished.

Draft 3:

This is a proofread draft. Ideally after taking a step back for a bit (minimum 2 weeks), the point is to return with fresh eyes (and ears). The trail had time to settle and maybe a few people had walked it (beta readers). Maybe it necessitates more serious reshuffling, but ideally not. If so, go back to draft 1. If you end draft 3 with only minor changes, you’ve got a book! :)

At this point, if you are following a more traditional publishing route, this where it would be passed off to an agent. A publisher might then edit and request different changes, but then, it becomes its own process.

Conclusion

Writers approach drafts differently. For me it’s usually three broad steps: laying down the trail of the story (draft 1), ensuring usability and enjoyment of the trail (draft 2), and then coming back after a while to ensure it is polished and intact (draft 3).

Each stage presents its own unique joys. I resonated with this interview with Kristen Felicetti.

I think writing a book is a huge leap of faith. It’s something you have to do on your own time with no guarantees that it’ll ever see the light of day. How did you cope with that reality and yet, at the same time, reach the finish line of this manuscript?

I think I just really believed in and loved the story and the characters. If you’re having a good time writing, you’re going to have a good time editing and finishing it, even before you think about what will happen publication-wise with the book. I was having a good time finishing the book. I wanted to be in this story and be in this voice, so that wasn’t hard.

I find it odd when people get tired or bored after getting to draft 1. The harder part was getting something done at all. Drafts 2 and 3, while still hard, feels like I’m playing with my story. I’m slotting everything into place and adding colour and feeling. I enjoy editing because it feels like I’m brushing away the dirt on a (hopeful) diamond. With each touch up, it shines more.

If you’re a novelist, how do you approach your drafts?

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Bonus Content!

This week I finished reading Dungeon Crawler Crawl (book #1). I’ve been wanting to try reading LitRPG for a while and this was a blast. It’s quite meta too. It actually reminded me a lot about a short story I wrote in 2020 called “Earth Has Been Margin Called”. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the intersection of literature that takes cues from gaming and so actively delving into the genre was fun. :)

I’ve also started watching Nathan For You. I loved The Rehearsal from Nathan Fielder and wanted to watch The Curse. But, thought I’d start at the front of the catalogue. Although Nathan tests boundaries a bit too much sometimes for my liking, I absolutely love when it still tries to treat people well. Like The Rehearsal, it’s very metamodern: breaking the 4th wall, not taking itself seriously, but also actually hiding a sincere message underneath of connecting with people in odd/strange ways.

Popup Villages

While I haven’t attended one yet, I’ve been following the nascent trend of popup cities/villages. From Zuzalu to Edge Esmerelda. It’s interesting in that it’s part-network, part-culture, part-intellectual, part-cities energy. Over the course of a period of a month or so, people gather in a specific place and join various tracks of networking and conferences alongside also contributing to local culture and also just enjoying spending time together. When I was actively speaking at Ethereum conferences that’s what the proto-version of this felt like. Same-ish people coming together in different cities and having the locals influence the feeling of the events. There were talks, coding, and parties. It then eventually grew into “weeks” as satellite events bloomed around a big event.

This take resonates:

Now, they more rightfully take the form of actually being what they are: pop-up villages.

Jonathan Hillis gave some perspective from his experiences attending a few.

Now, with popup villages, we have seen hundreds of people from the internet gather for multiple months at a time. Not only does this put popup villages on the frontier of cloud formations, it puts them right in the middle of the chart. This seems to be a sweet spot for developing network societies. Popup villages are long enough to build relationships, but short enough to not require permanent relocation. They are big enough to be vibrant, but small enough to be feasible.

At this scale, busy people can commit to come for a few days: just long enough to give a talk, meet some new people, and contribute to the local culture. Nomads can join for months at a time and live in a constant co-created university. People can start to form an interwoven network of relationships that carries a culture forward across ephemeral events.

I love that with Edge Esmerelda, it’s also explicitly started to focus on inclusivity across generations: being kid and elderly friendly. Looking forward to see how this trend develops over time.

Status of AI + Copyright

Trying to follow all the lawsuits of AI + IP? Andres has a post up giving more details on where it’s at and what to expect. Also includes links for more detailed sites that are tracking these lawsuits.

It’s probably going to be a long haul, which kind of makes this harder for the claimants. 2 years ago ChatGPT didn’t exist.

Only two years ago many of us were playing with Craiyon, and rumours of an incredible tool called DALL·E 2 were starting to make waves. ChatGPT wasn’t even a thing, and Midjourney and Stable Diffusion were still a couple of months away.

It’s all moving *very* fast and the courts don’t.

Chasqui Relay System

TIL of a relay system of runners that the Inca had. Crazy.

Havoc

While NFTs have moved away from mainstream attention, it’s made it easier to keep tabs on really interesting art coming out of the scene. Miragenesi’s Havoc is another new one. Using price oracles, the pieces are only tradable and transferable under dire market conditions.

Love it.

Starjunk 95 - LX-777 (Lunar Data)

I found this artist last week. Liquid drum & bass, Y2K breakcore vibes.

It really made me get back into 90’s and early 2000’s mood. Made me go down a Y2K aesthetic rabbit-hole.

…and then went down further rabbit-holes.

I’m not usually one for nostalgia. I think it blinds one sometimes to the novelty of the present. But, what I do miss about the Y2K aesthetic era was optimism about the future. It feels we’ve become increasingly afraid of the future (in the West, even in political ideologies and cultures that used to be pro-future). As I’ve also delved a bit into Mark Fisher’s work as well (Capitalist Realism), it’s made me wonder again what a compelling vision for the future might look like that isn’t just going back and re-using or re-attempting 20th century thought.

Time will tell.

Either way. A sunset awaits! Hope you get to see one. See you next week!

Simon