Random Thoughts on Writing the Rough Draft
Plus: Next Book Club Selection: A Gentleman in Moscow (October 20)
I’ve spent much of the past two years on the editing process for Open Bar - working with the SparkPress editors, invaluable beta readers, and others to revise, rewrite, and fine-tune this novel to finally reach the finished product.
So what’s next? I’m back to the (near) beginning, working on the first draft, or rough draft, of my next novel. The working title is In Happier Times, and I wrote a little about the writing jouney to this book here. I start every novel I write by thinking: I like this idea a lot, and maybe others will too, but there’s a decent chance everyone else will hate it and that’s okay. And I feel that doubly so this time.
I break down the novel writing journey into three main sections: outlining the story, writing the first draft, and re-writing/editing. I wrote more about these different stages and other parts of the writing process here.
With In Happier Times, I worked on outlining/fleshing out the main characters and story concepts while in the editing process of Open Bar, so with Open Bar on the shelves, I’m able to really dive into the rough draft of In Happier Times.
For me, the first draft is the most enjoyable part of writing. In other words, I think the most fun part of writing is the actually writing. That’s when there’s the most freedom, the most unrestrained creativity. If a potentially interesting concept or dialogue exchange pops into my head, I get to just go with it and see if it works and where it leads. I don’t have to always aim for complete plot consistency or flawless language. I get to play with different concepts and characters and see where it takes me.
I always have the key plot points and general ending figured out in advance from the outlining stage, so those are my guardrails to keep things from completely going off track when I start the actual writing. My general rule for the first draft is that if I’m not sure if something reads well, I keep it in and figure I’ll review it later. In the later editing phase, if I’m not sure if something reads well, I always err on the side of removing it.
I see a lot of discussion among writers about how much and when to edit your first draft as you’re writing it. After you write each section, should you go back and edit it before moving on to the next? Or keep pushing forward until you finish the complete draft, and then start the editing process? I generally start each writing session with a quick review of what I wrote last time, making minor tweaks but not heavy editing. I don’t want to slow down the writing process, but this (hopefully) gets me back in the flow of things as I begin to write the next portion. I don’t start major editing until the first draft is complete.
Writer’s block is often a huge dilemna for writers. I find it helpful to stop each writing session at a point when I already know what I’m writing next, leaving at least a little bit for next time. Then when I resume, I have an immediately jumping off point to start writing again.
Even though I outline a lot before writing the first draft, I remain open to changes as the story develops. Sometimes characters surprise me, sometimes they don’t want to go where I (and the outline) tell them to head. I need to defer to the characters and not force them down a path that’s inauthentic for them. Also, often it’s difficult when outlining to know whether a plot point really works. I need to actually write it out and then assess whether it should stay in the novel.
For each book I’ve written, I have a separate Word document full of scenes and dialogue that I ended up cutting because they ultimately didn’t work. Some of this just involved sub-par writing that needed to be scrapped. Some involved dialogue or scenes that I actually really liked, but they didn’t advance the narrative, or they unnecessarily slowed down the story, or they didn’t fit with the rest of the story. Maybe some of these will find a home in a future novel.
When writing the first draft, I try to set a word count goal each day and push myself to stick with it. Some days are more successful than others. Ideally I’d like to write at least 500 words a day, so if a full-length novel is approximately 90,000 words, 180 days of hitting that word count goal will lead to a completed first draft. Much easier said than done.
Then comes the extensive editing process, which for Open Bar took about 18 months. I’ll write more about that in another post. For now, I’m again living in the world of the first draft, seeing how this fresh story develops, enjoying the excitement of these new characters and events, dreaming of what the finished product will look like when it’s finally completed and out in the world for everyone to read.
Open Bar Book Launch Photos
Thank you to everyone who attended the Open Bar launch event last month! Here are a few photos of this exciting and fun night:
Next Book Club Selection
Our next Book Club will be via Zoom on Monday, October 20 at 8pm ET, when we’ll discuss New York Times bestseller A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Registration is open here.
Here’s the Goodreads description:
The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers—Now a Paramount+ with Showtime series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov.
From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.
Feel free to attend even if you don’t read the book, and please pass on the info to anyone else who might be interesting in joining!
Open Bar Info
My second novel Open Bar is published by SparkPress and distributed by Simon & Schuster. Based on my experience as a New York sex crimes prosecutor and a sexual misconduct investigator for educational institutions, Open Bar follows the chaotic fallout when a high-profile sexual misconduct scandal rocks a prominent university.
You can find more information and links to order here and here. Kirkus Reviews calls Open Bar “A timely and absorbing novel that asks what it costs to tell the truth” and says, “Schorr’s prose is clean, fast-moving, and often laced with dark humor” (full review here). The American Fiction Awards named Open Bar as this year’s Winner in the “Thriller: Political” category - you can see the full awards list here.
You can also listen to the first chapter of the Open Bar audiobook, narrated by Moniqua Plante.
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