Please Comment: Drafts

[RK Wallis]

Hey all,

I have a question:

What do you count as one draft?

For years, I counted "one draft" as one complete MS read through, whether structural changes or something else.

Only this morning I decided that's too hard to track (it's always been hard to track). For my current MS, I'm considering "one draft" complete when it goes out to readers because my mind has a chance to empty of my MS (same applies when I let it rest). So, I'm counting that emptying of the mind as "one draft", that's easier for me to count. But read throughs might work for you

I invite everyone to contribute their thoughts. There's no wrong or right answer, just what works for you.

Cheers
Rachel

 

[James Charles]

Hey all,

I have a question:

What do you count as one draft?

For years, I counted "one draft" as one complete MS read through, whether structural changes or something else.

Only this morning I decided that's too hard to track (it's always been hard to track). For my current MS, I'm considering "one draft" complete when it goes out to readers because my mind has a chance to empty of my MS (same applies when I let it rest). So, I'm counting that emptying of the mind as "one draft", that's easier for me to count. But read throughs might work for you

I invite everyone to contribute their thoughts. There's no wrong or right answer, just what works for you.

Cheers
Rachel

Different for each writer. Hard to define.

 

[Sedayne]

It's easy to identify the first draft - that's when I've written something in its entirety but not edited it. The subsequent versions and edits are too unwieldy to identify or quantify as drafts

I suppose I could count the number of saved versions, but I'm still not sure it would be accurate, given that I sometimes save a new version after revising only one section. I don't think I'd identify that as a new draft.

Is it important?

 

[Vagabond Heart]

What's a draft?
Every time I finish another run-through and temporarily fool myself that this is it, the best I could do, maybe a few minor tweaks needed, but this is the one.
And then I let people look at it, and very, very quickly realise it's just another draft, and I can do better. With lots of help from you guys, obviously.
For which, thanks muchly.

 

[RK Wallis]

It's easy to identify the first draft - that's when I've written something in its entirety but not edited it. The subsequent versions and edits are too unwieldy to identify or quantify as drafts

I suppose I could count the number of saved versions, but I'm still not sure it would be accurate, given that I sometimes save a new version after revising only one section. I don't think I'd identify that as a new draft.

Is it important?

So true about that first draft and after is a fog of drafts.

Nothing important, just a discussion on everyone's process

 

[Sedayne]

a fog of drafts.

This is an excellent expression for it.

 

[Rachael Burnett]

I tend to just keep, and so see them as drafts, previous versions when I’ve made major changes that fundamentally change the narrative, characterisation, etc.

 

[JoanUP]

I only bother saving a separate "DRAFT", as opposed to a working copy that's under constant revision, when I share with someone for feedback.
Instead of assigning a draft number, I assign it the date.

 

[Pamela Jo]

I tend to agree -when it goes out to readers. I still havent figured out the draft that I would consider finished enough to publish.

 

[RK Wallis]

I still havent figured out the draft that I would consider finished enough to publish.

I agree