Writing in Layers

I was asked recently how far into book 2 I was, if I'd even started writing it yet. While I admit that I've spent a lot of time formatting the first book, yes, I'm currently on writing the second book and am in chapter 12. So does that mean I'm almost halfway done? No!

Part of the time I spent writing this whole story has been just writing draft after draft. If anyone thinks that writing a fantasy novel is easy, well, it's not. If you're creating your own world like I did, you've got to think about culture, politics, religion, clothes, language, food, interactions with friends and family, planetary orbits -- in other words, everything! Sometime I'll talk about the different kinds of universes a world can be set in -- it's actually an online seminar I gave a long time ago. I spent a lot of time just getting to know my world and test things.

But once I knew the story, the actual writing came down to writing this story in layers. It's too hard to remember all the rules of writing at once. That's why manuscripts are created in drafts.

I admit. I was once a 15 year old author who thought every word I wrote was golden. I'm so glad now that I didn't actually get published then. I wasn't ready. I didn't have the life experiences I needed, nor did I really understand the craft of writing. Oh, I wrote drafts, but I didn't understand their purpose. I thought I did. I was so wrong.

It wasn't until I really experimented with writing different types of manuscripts (romance, children's, screenplays, short stories, etc.) that I realized that I was decent at writing dialog and immediate actions. Descriptions and pacing were other issues.

When I decided to change this to a graphic novel so I'd only have to write quick descriptions and dialog, all of a sudden my job felt easier (okay, drawing the dang thing is another issue!). I flew through writing the story this way. Talking heads, okay, I can do that.

Then, while I was drawing the story, I got an itching to write the novelization. Fine. A novelization. Writing a book was a hard project, but writing a novelization of the graphic novel much simpler.

Using what I had, I came back to the story. Now, all I had to do was add a little bit of setting and some more actions to the basics that I already had. After that, another draft to add a bit more. A few tweaks to the story in the next couple drafts. Soon, I'd been through it several times and added a little more each time.

As I built the layers, I would go through and try to apply "rules of writing" as I went. I'd try to note places where I was telling the story instead of showing it. I'd mix setting in with the dialog to break up the talking heads, but I'd also try to mix the setting into the action as to not stop the story.


Now, sitting on the other side of editing and having my proof copy in hand, I can tell you that there is something else I wish I'd done -- one more layer I'd gone through. I wish I'd actually printed out my story and run an editing draft on paper. I tried to do it all on my computer to be green and save the environment, but now I see that the paper draft would've helped me see a few things I missed. I'm not going to hold up the release of the book though I keep wondering if I should. I do see things that are wrong (and at this point I've only managed to read through chapter three). Of course, they may only bug me because I know better. After all, I've seen what passes as a published book these days -- books where the word "was" is a special candy to be used as many times in a sentence as possible like it was some fancy drug. But this is a lesson learned and I'm sure I'll have more to impart later. I plan on putting out a free PDF about the lessons I learned in writing The Three Books which will have these handy tips and more. I figure that'll be released in a few weeks.

In the meanwhile, if you have any questions about writing in layers (or any writing questions at all) let me know. I'd love to know what writing issues you're facing and maybe (because I have 35 years of writing experience) I can help point you in the right direction. But you can't get help if you don't ask.