I’ve been writing novels for over ten years now, which is pretty wild to think about!

 

I’m calling my latest one number seven – though four has only reached novella length and six was non-fiction. Still, that’s quite a few, so you’d think I’d know what I was doing by now…

 

But no! I’m constantly refining my outlining, drafting and revision process, hoping to make the whole thing easier, more fun and less time consuming.

 

One of the things I struggle with most is adding depth – descriptions, sensory detail, emotion and moments of significance that will elicit a strong reaction in the reader. None of that comes naturally to me, as I usually write very quickly and the first draft stage and the narrative comes out quite stark and lacking in detail.

 

For my last but one full novel, I decided to allow myself to write as quickly and sparsely as I wanted in the first draft, and try to inject all the added detail at a later stage, what I call the ‘depth pass’. That worked to a certain extent, but I was quite bored of the novel by then and it already felt pretty well finished, so I found it difficult to motivate myself to work at that level of detail.

 

For the novel that’s currently getting a second round of feedback from various people, hopefully with a view to being ready to submit of self-publish by the end of this year, I tried to add the extra detail in as I was doing the initial draft. That way, I hoped there would be a lot less work to do at later stages. That didn’t work particularly well, either, because it slowed the storytelling aspect right down and made it hard for me to keep the flow of the narrative going.

 

So, this time, I’m going to try and combine the two approaches.

 

For each scene in the outline, I’m going to spend one ‘work session’ writing a first draft, quickly and sparsely, just getting the story onto the page. Then, at my next ‘work session’ (usually the next day), I’m going to go over the scene I’ve just written and try to add all the depth and detail at that stage, before moving on to the next one in the story.

 

I’m hoping that will give me the freedom to write the story as it comes naturally, but also add in some detail at the first draft stage, rather than having to go through the whole novel in one go to do it later.

 

I have to say, it’s working really well so far – but then I’ve only written one scene!

 

I’m not setting an official schedule or deadline for the first draft of this novel – but I’m tentatively hoping to complete two scenes per week in this way, which will take me to late February (with a few weeks’ leeway for holidays and other obstacles).

 

Wish me luck!