#wipvii

[squarebracket-trickster]

Since we're talking about second drafts -

"When you get to your second draft do yourself a favour and rewrite it completely. Trust me. You'll hate me now but you'll be thanking me later. Rewrite it. Don't even look at your first draft. If it's important it will stick."

I really tried to follow this advice. It didn't work for me.

By the time I started my second draft (a year after finishing draft 1) I had forgotten so much about the story that if I didn't look at my first draft wouldn't be starting with a draft, I'd be back in the planning/outlining stage.

Staring at a blank document trying to come up with the right words all over again was unnecessary stress and a waste of time. I was happy enough with my first draft. Why fix what ain't broke?

My getting-words-on-the-page process is messy. I word vomit, I ramble, I overwrite. I don't add description unless it's important to the plot. I don't edit unless my writing would be completely incomprehensible to future me otherwise. I type as fast as I can. If I started over I'd have a second draft of the exact same shit quality as my first. Maybe the pacing would be a little better. Maybe there would be less inconsistency. But there's no guarantee of that. How much would I really have to show for all that effort?

Going into my second draft with specific goals for revision is what worked in the end. I wanted to: trim my word count by 32 000 words, fix the plot holes, fix macro pacing issues like scenes where nothing interesting happens, change the ending, and make sure things are properly foreshadowed.

That I could do. It broke it down, made it far less overwhelming than "rewrite everything" and it saved me time. I'm on my third draft now, more than two years after I started my first. My writing has grown a lot in that time but I still stand by my decision not to rewrite. The story didn't need it. I don't see any decisions I could have made different on a rewrite that would have made my story so much better than what I have now.

So find what works for you. If rewriting works all the power to you! But don't feel like you are limiting yourself by not doing it. Rewriting won't magically improve your writing. Any revision needs to be done with intention.

This is your permission to not rewrite. Especially if it's making you avoid touching your draft all together.

[squarebracket-trickster]

#put you in a ship in a bottle#because it reminded me of the opening of your story taking place#well I guess no longer on a ship but close enough

omg!! <3333 I did not realize anyone was following my WIP this closely hahahaha

The opening scene still does take place on a ship! A medieval cog ship to be exact.

You guys really liked my last poll so

[squarebracket-trickster]

Here's a little snippet from WIPVII (my baby) for you all, in celebration of me finally figuring out how to get this one line of dialogue to land how I want it to.

It's been like 3.5 drafts (like full manuscript drafts), okay. I think this deserves a lil' merriment.

--

For context: the POV character is Princess Isolda (Isolde) de Angenet in disguise. The man she is speaking to thinks she is a servant boy from Princess Isolde's ship.

“You would betray your princess—” “Yes, she’s a bitch—” A flail of wings and the startled cry of a songbird swallow the coda, and the man and I watch together a depression in the [tent] ceiling fumble a path from centre to edge. At last, the poor bird finds its bearings and flies off. The man’s gaze returns with a furrowed brow upon me, and I find my mouth has yet to close from speaking—the words left me rather more passionately than I had intended. Speaker and subject of insult alike shuts her lips, and I swallow back both my pride and whatever I was going to say next. The excuse will have to do as is because I am not suffering this slip of the tongue any further. The slightest shake of his head banishes whatever thought had creased the man’s brow. “What is it you desire?” he asks me. Our eyes lock, and his are softer now than I have yet seen them. Merficully, it seems he has deemed my excuse unworthy of any further suspicion—at least for the time being. What he thinks of me, why my judgement of Isolda de Angenet matters to him so much, I can only guess at. I’ve insulted myself; I’m not sure what his problem is. “Shoes,” I say and wiggle a wet sock at him. “And food, and a place to rest. I am willing to work for it. I can sew”—Shoot.. is sewing my only useful skill?—"and stuff..."

— WIPVII, draft III (the comments; technically, draft 3.5)

Square musings below the cut<3

Shout out, pathetic fallacy, you really came in for the clutch!

Dialogue tags failed me... Turns out, when you cut off a line of dialogue with an em-dash, and then follow it immediately with a dialogue tag saying, "I blurted without thinking, then cut myself off," it ruins the effect of the em-dash abruptly cutting off the dialogue. Who'd'da thunk?

Still, the em-dash wasn't conveying enough information on it's own; thus, the question that ate away at me for 3.5 drafts: how, precisely, to convey the delivery of this line of dialogue without using a dialogue tag.

Action beats failed me too, alas. The scene was already too body language heavy, and there were a very limited number of actions I could have had this character do (that would actually convey what she was thinking) that wouldn't be out of character for a person in disguise who is supposedly good at maintaining a poker face.

Hence, it was about time the setting pulled it's weight around, and my poor, ripped-at hair is ever grateful.

[squarebracket-trickster]

Ever since I've started paying attention to how published authors use punctuation, I have stopped caring about sentence fragments, or overusing commas, semicolons, and em-dashes.

You gotta let your sentences flow naturally. Sometimes that means not using three em-dashes in a paragraph because it is distracting. Sometimes that means using three semicolons in a single sentence (*cough* Frank Herbert).

Maybe the rule is, don't use fancy punctuation/fragments if following grammar rules and conventions will do, but sometimes your sentence just sounds better with six commas, an em-dash, and no verbs.

[squarebracket-trickster]

You know, writing novels really skews your perception of how many words is a lot.

I'm staring at my third draft, 26 559 words, and I'm thinking, wow that's so few words. I cut more words from my first draft than I have written for my third so far.

I'll be writing an essay for uni like, 1000 words? That's it???

And I have to be careful because, no, 26 500 is A LOT of words. It's nearly 50 pages of printer paper.

The very first time I tried to write a novel I got about 28 000 words in before I got permanently stuck. When I told people their reaction was generally, "28 000 is still a lot of words though. Wow."

And now, I am nearly 28 000 words in again... but to a third draft. 215 180 words into this project. And I'm not stuck this time.

[squarebracket-trickster]

I scrapped every outline I tried for WIPVII. I also gave up on every draft I tried to pants.

What worked in the end was essentially rubber ducking the premise until it became the set-up to a story.

The premise: a princess runs away from an arranged marriage but accidentally falls in love with the prince she was supposed to marry (though neither knows who the other really is).

Then I went, okay so, where does the princess run away to? What is the prince doing there? Did he run away too or?

And I decided that I wanted the princess to feel pressured to return to her marriage as the main source of conflict. So, why might she feel that pressure?

Her marriage was meant to ratify a peace treaty. She runs away to a bandit camp. Her opportunity comes when those bandits try to kidnap her (because the idea of her joining the very bandits trying to kidnap her is funny and also a princess running away to be a bandit feels very fairy-tale-y). No, he did not run away too - I like him as her character foil, representing adherence to society. He is a spy.

So then, how might the peace treaty fail? What would start a war?

Well, these bandits must be a threat to Kingdom B if the prince is spying on them. Let's make the Bandit King the primary villain. Every one else has negotiated for peace but it makes sense if a bandit would prefer wartime. He has a plan to take over part of kingdom B but somehow this plan needs to involve kingdom A (so I can make A and B go to war).

And then I got stuck for a really long time and could not figure out what the Bandit King's plan could possibly be.

Finally I came up with the idea to have the Bandit King try to capture the princess, not for a ransom, but so he could threaten her father into sending him reinforcements when he tries to conquer one of Kingdom B's castles.

Then I was like, okay so the plot so far is basically, princess runs away but everyone thinks she has been captured. She joins the bandits that are looking for her. Eventually they stumble on Kingdom A's army, figure out Bandit King's evil plan, and convince Lord A to betray Bandit King in the middle of battle. Meanwhile prince and princess have feelings for each other and come so close to figuring each other out but never do. Battle happens. Prince and princess have a fight and decide never to see each other again. Princess gets captured by Bandit King for real this time. Prince rescues her. They finally realize who each other really is and... the story ends somehow. idk how.

I never wrote that down. I never got more specific than that. Other than like two moments I wanted to happen.

So idk if this counts as an outline or if it counts as "pantsing but having a general idea what I am writing towards". I don't really think of it as either. It took way too long to figure out for me to call it "pantsing", that feels like an erasure of the planning stage, which was, tbh, the hardest part of the project for me.

As for whether I did a draft 0 or a draft 1. I told myself it was going to be a draft 0. I named the document WIPVII Zeroth draft. It ended up a fully fleshed out draft 1. But I needed to start it as a draft 0. It took the pressure off and made sure I didn't kill my ideas bogged down in details.

Happy Storyteller Saturday!

Very curious to see your thoughts in the tags on why your process works for you! I want to refine my draft 0/draft 1 process myself.

[squarebracket-trickster]

1300 words and I will finally be at 50k. (Not including the only one bed scene which I have been editing out of order).

I've just finished that one scene I've been avoiding for idk how many months at this point.

Maybe the next scenes will go fast.

[squarebracket-trickster]

It is time to pull out the big guns.

Set font to Comic Sans.

[squarebracket-trickster]

My biggest fear is that my future readers are going to figure out I'm touch-starved just from one too many descriptions of a character repetitively brushing their fingers above another character's eyebrow (my grandma used to do this to me when I had a headache).

If there is one weirdly specific action that routinely shows up for me across multiple WIPs...

[squarebracket-trickster]

Ah, I meant to finish this days ago! Alas, chronic fatigue kicked my ass again.

Anways, my reactions<3

(go check it out if you haven’t!! it’s really cool!! it includes a runaway princess and a lot of bandits!!)

If anyone is interested, here is the blurb (introduction) for WIPVII. One of these many centuries I will make a proper WIP Intro and a master post of snippets and additional information, but, alas, I have not gotten there yet. I don't post full chapters because I hope to query... one day. Asks/tag games, memes and shitposts, and writing updates can all be found under the tag #wipvii on my blog.

Okay, reactions below the cut<3

Oh! And tagging both @rbbess110 AND @bluberimufim because apparently there are two people invested in this little wip of mine. I love you both so fricking much!

when was at the very beginning of looking for answers, i thought “it’s not that he has a secret identity, right”. i don’t know where that thought came from exactly, i just somehow thought it can’t be it. something big from his past, sure, but not a full-blown secret identity.

heheHEH you and Isolde are the same person:

[Isolde speaks:] "You are close to the king. Closer than you let on.” [Henry speaks:] “Since when did you become fluent in Andun?” I suppose we both know the wrong things to ask. That’s how it always seems to be with us – one gets just a bit too close to the truth, then the other takes a turn. Always equals, Henry de Andovin and Isolde de Angenet, though Henry doesn’t know the extent of it. Do I? Or is Henry’s secret just as dangerous as my own? I can’t imagine how.

Gee, Isolde, can you not think of any way whatsoever that you and Henry could possibly be equals? His secret is as dangerous *as your own*, you say? Could it possibly be that Henry has a secret identity too? Is it at all possible Henry le Gylar de Espier de Andovin might not be being one hundred percent honest with you? No?

*le Gylar is a nickname Henry earns in Deverticus after betraying everyone, and I mean everyone. Gylar means deceiver in Middle English.

**De Espier is what Henry told everyone his house was before they figured out he was an Andovin. Espier means spy in Middle French and was introduced to Middle English via the Normans (who the Andovins are loosely based on). Some of the bandits in Deverticus figured it was a joke, but a few actually took him seriously. Why did Henry pick something so obvious, you ask? Because he's a little shit, and he thinks he's funny.

when kate teased me saying “if that’s even his name” i sort of thought it was a joke up until some digging. (especially since the name henry fits him so well. i’ll die on that hill)

Don't worry. It never occurs to Isolde that Henry might not be his real name either.

looking back on it, i sort of understand the characters we sometimes laugh at for being so oblivious and missing clues in plain sight (looking at you isolde, my dear. but i. i get it now)

I think if you got to read the novel cover to cover it would have been a lot more obvious. Anyone familiar enough with either Shakespean-style comedies or the adventure fantasy subgenre has a fair chance of guessing it pretty early on in the story, just from genre conventions and recognizable tropes.

The sheer number of hints and jokes in the novel might have also clued you in if you'd gotten to read them all in order and in context.

Not to say that everyone who may ever end up reading this thing will end up guessing it but, to be fair to you, you had it hard!

Still, even though I think the big question in the story is less "who is Henry?" and more "when and how, exactly, are these two dumbasses going to finally figure each other out?" (with it getting funnier the longer it goes on, and the wait, hopefully, being worth it for the payoff), it's delightful to know the premise (Henry and Isolde not cluing in to who the other is) is slightly less absurd than it appears!

I’ve started thinking it’s not a joke after stumbling upon this post: [@/isabellebissonrouthier writes: REBLOG WITH THE BIGGEST SPOILER OF YOUR WIP IN ONE SINGLE WORD. @/squarebracket-trickster reblogs and tags it: #wipvii #you??] At which point i was like: okay. maaaybe secret identity it is then, unless it’s strictly about isolda.

I remember giggling and thinking of you when I wrote that tag. It seems it did its job well.

i’m thinking this is sort of anastasia-core kind of deal: a childhood friend/servant who was forced to run away at some point but always held a dear memory for the princess perhaps?

This is fascinating because I vaguely recall toying with an idea like this, long ago when I was still playing with outlines. I think I was singing In a Crowd of Thousands (from the Broadway muscial) while cleaning my kitchen and desperately searching for a solution to my latest bought of writer's block. My idea was for a presumed-dead Isolde to have to return and claim a throne to save her kingdom from collapse (after war sees the rest of her family killed). Henry would have been the childhood friend who finally convinces her not to turn her back, but, the idea was just a bit too ambitious for my liking, and it was getting dangerously close to love triangle territory (with the prince - not Henry - being the other man), which has never been my cup of tea.

especially after i found something about characters growing up in royal court? i was, once again, pretty sure it might’ve been about isolde, but still.

Potentially this was the snippet where Isolde wonders if Henry has, actually, slept with a princess - not her, a different princess - because he would have spent plenty of time at court while training to be a knight, and there is no way in hell the ladies of the court weren't sneaking glances... because she would be if she had been there... ahem ?

i completely, completely missed literal SQUAREBRACKES AROUND HENRY’S NAME. (…yeah, i meant it when i say next time i want to laugh about characters not noticing obvious hints i’m going to take a double take.)

Something, something, irony, my blog name, cough

since it was now confirmed that henry is NOT his real name (kate i know you’d hinted at it like three times before but I WASN’T SURE IF YOU WERE JOKING OR NOT so i. ignored it. not my proudest moment) and i had to reconsider my whole theory.

The plot of WIPVII has been tested irl for quality assurance, it seems, and you were the guinea pig haha. If I ever publish this thing, and some critic claims the whole premise is too absurd to take seriously, I am going to cite you and this post as evidence to the contrary (said with all the love in my heart). This little challenge I put you up to has turned out to be surprisingly fitting.

this is a point in which i wrote in my notes: “secret fucking identity for sure the little bastard” (this was said lovingly, of course)

No, because he is a little bastard, and he knows it.

i’ll admit: i’ve started this all backwards. i’ve started ALL THIS RESEARCH. forgetting the main plotline of the wip i was reading about. i forgot what isolda was running away from. the arranged marriage with the eldest son of the king of dian. i have NOTHING to say for myself. expect. i forgor.

To be FAIR, you were piecing this whole thing together off of tumblr posts. The fact that you figured out the plot and premise at all, let alone as well as you have, is commendable, and your dedication honours me.

let me tell you, when i read it, my eyes went WIDE. the note i’ve written down to myself was: “did henry pull the uno reverse on isolde. is he the eldest son of the king of dian.”

Giggling. Kicking my feet. Bouncing in my chair. Giggling intensifies.

…and burst out in full on LAUGHTER.

The perfect reaction! I can die happy (jokes)! But, seriously, I can only hope readers of the full thing, cover to cover, react exactly like this. I am so happy!

oh, henry. my sweet, sweet henry. you silly little bastard.

Yes, yes, he is. Absolute little shit of a man.

henrius de andovin le espier’s REAL name is philip of dian, the eldest son of the king of dian and he’s therefore isolde’s betrothed. as far as i’m aware, he’s going undercover as a spy. he’s told isolde who his grandfather was once and she didn’t piece it together that him and philip are the same person (she simply thought they were related. isolde, my dear, i don’t judge you one bit).

Yes! Henry is Philip, Crown Prince of Dian, and Isolde's husband (not betrothed. They are actually already married - the marriage was conducted by proxy). Philip (Henry) is undercover in Deveritucs (bandit stronghold) because the bandit king, Lord Hob, has been a headache for Philip's father in recent years, and poor Philip has been tasked with Doing Something About It(tm). Philip was supposed to leave Deverticus to meet Isolde, but then he got wind that Lord Hob planned to intercept Isolde's ship, so he decided to stay, in case Hob took her prisoner, to help her escape.

Unfortunately, Isolde herself had other plans... (poor Henry, but then, the man is cute when he suffers:)

i’ve said it and will say it again: this was SO FUN. wip vii is so entertaining, and i adore philip/henry as a character. the bet is one thing, but trying to find out henry’s secret was a reward in itself, honestly. i’ve had a blast.

Aw! I am so flattered and so, so glad you had so much fun with this! I thought it would be a fun challange for you - a fun, more interactive way to get to know your boy, Henry (and rather in-line with the spirit of the story).

I will post an excerpt, I promise, but it might take me a bit of time. I need this most recent round of chronic fatigue to let up a bit so I can actually have the capacity to polish up something from draft 3. But, I am already thinking of possible scenes I could pick from... hmmm... choices...

You should also know that, despite my fatigue, your enthusaism for Henry and our bet has infected me enough to actually open my draft, which has been sitting at 70% done for who knows how many months now, and start re-reading it and adding comments for draft 4 edits. In other words, you've cast some kind of spell on me that has given me the energy to start making progress again. And I hope you know how much I love you (platonically) for this<3 I really needed the boost, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.

does a dramatic mic drop, nods and exits the stage ... walks back on the stage. picks up the mic. ...i'm never judging another oblivious character again. we tend to just be clueless sometimes.

Perfect words to end on<3

ooookay random post time!! almost two years ago now (july 2023. time flies.) my beloved moot (@squarebracket-trickster) challenged me to figure out the big secret of her character from her wip vii (go check it out if you haven’t!! it’s really cool!! it includes a runaway princess and a lot of bandits!!)

and so, after a while i’ve finally set my mind on trying to piece this together, once and for all!! and i have!! so, behold: the (not so) short walk-through my thought process. and also all the information i’ve gathered. (warning for spoilers for wip vii. and a bit of a long post, hahah)

so, henry's secret. we're talking about henry de andovin, to be exact. when was at the very beginning of looking for answers, i thought “it’s not that he has a secret identity, right”. i don’t know where that thought came from exactly, i just somehow thought it can’t be it. something big from his past, sure, but not a full-blown secret identity. and when kate teased me saying “if that’s even his name” i sort of thought it was a joke up until some digging. (especially since the name henry fits him so well. i’ll die on that hill)

looking back on it, i sort of understand the characters we sometimes laugh at for being so oblivious and missing clues in plain sight (looking at you isolde, my dear. but i. i get it now)

i’ve started thinking it’s not a joke after stumbling upon this post:

at which point i was like: okay. maaaybe secret identity it is then, unless it’s strictly about isolda. but we do know (or at least can suspect) that henry has some sort of connection to isolde from this bit right here:

Merficully, it seems he has deemed my excuse unworthy of any further suspicion—at least for the time being. What he thinks of me, why my judgement of Isolda de Angenet matters to him so much, I can only guess at. I’ve insulted myself; I’m not sure what his problem is.

from this post, so the "you??" thing can (and probably is) about both of them. however, at this point i’m thinking this is sort of anastasia-core kind of deal: a childhood friend/servant who was forced to run away at some point but always held a dear memory for the princess perhaps? something like that. so maybe i wasn’t even at the “secret identity” point yet, more like “a long lost friend but they’ve changed so much they don’t recognize each other anymore”. especially after i found something about characters growing up in royal court? i was, once again, pretty sure it might’ve been about isolde, but still.

and then the tying her favour on his lance post came along. at first it kind of made me stick to my asumptions from before (with isolde trying to be sneaky and find out his thoughts about her, and her being “so sure” she hasn’t met him before. i thought that might turn out to seem very ironic later on). but then. the last tying her favour on his lance joke. and this quote:

[Henry] raises an eyebrow at me. “I would not dishonour my wife by losing.”

and i didn’t see the hint before kate POINTED IT OUT to me. which i’m grateful for, by the way. i was looking for hints, but my fast-reading brain more scans the text then pays close attention to it, and so i completely, completely missed literal SQUAREBRACKES AROUND HENRY’S NAME. (…yeah, i meant it when i say next time i want to laugh about characters not noticing obvious hints i’m going to take a double take.)

and i was told there was an even bigger hint hidden in there. i had an idea what it might’ve been, but i’ve decided to go back to it once i’ve gathered more information not to draw conclusions too quickly. especially since it was now confirmed that henry is NOT his real name (kate i know you’d hinted at it like three times before but I WASN’T SURE IF YOU WERE JOKING OR NOT so i. ignored it. not my proudest moment) and i had to reconsider my whole theory.

this is a point in which i wrote in my notes: “secret fucking identity for sure the little bastard” (this was said lovingly, of course)

and honestly, i thought there would be wayyy, way more scrolling required for me to find the secret identity of “the little bastard”, but THEN i found the post with the blurb. and the puzzle pieces clicked.

Two kingdoms long at war have laid down their arms at last, but peace hinges on treaty that can only be sealed by the marriage of the eldest son of the King of Dian to the eldest daughter of the King of Cithidy.

i’ll admit: i’ve started this all backwards. i’ve started ALL THIS RESEARCH. forgetting the main plotline of the wip i was reading about. i forgot what isolda was running away from.

the arranged marriage with the eldest son of the king of dian.

i have NOTHING to say for myself. expect. i forgor.

let me tell you, when i read it, my eyes went WIDE. the note i’ve written down to myself was:

“did henry pull the uno reverse on isolde. is he the eldest son of the king of dian.”

and then i read the post till the end:

The was inspired by the premise: A princess runs away from an arranged marriage and ends up falling in love with the person she was supposed to marry (neither of them know who the other really is).

…and burst out in full on LAUGHTER.

oh, henry. my sweet, sweet henry. you silly little bastard.

i continued on scrolling, to ensure myself that i’m right and try to find more information (although the whole thing absolutely fit with henry hiding something about isolde, and how he called her his wife in that tying her favour on his lance bit. and i’ve found some WAY MORE OBVIOUS hints have been dropped in the meantime and i laughed some more.

so now, to sum up:

henrius de andovin le espier’s REAL name is philip of dian, the eldest son of the king of dian and he’s therefore isolde’s betrothed. as far as i’m aware, he’s going undercover as a spy. he’s told isolde who his grandfather was once and she didn’t piece it together that him and philip are the same person (she simply thought they were related. isolde, my dear, i don’t judge you one bit).

i’ve said it and will say it again: this was SO FUN. wip vii is so entertaining, and i adore philip/henry as a character. the bet is one thing, but trying to find out henry’s secret was a reward in itself, honestly. i’ve had a blast.

(also, i cannot believe it’s been two years, holy moly)

however, i am not someone to refuse some henry content, so i am looking forward to this henry-related snippet as a prize, muahahah. i am waiting

once again huge shout out to @squarebracket-trickster — you are AMAZING MATE!! thank you for this!!

does a dramatic mic drop, nods and exits the stage ... walks back on the stage. picks up the mic. ...i'm never judging another oblivious character again. we tend to just be clueless sometimes.

[squarebracket-trickster]

You know what I hate? Continuity.

There is nothing more egregious in this world than having to skim 44 pages worth of word doc to find a single throwaway line that may or may not even exist, and, if it does exist, could be literally anywhere from here to four acts ago.

Just to make sure Character doesn't already know the Secret that plot requires they find out in chapter 29. Also, when did Character get their knife back? When was the last time they slept? How has there been a crescent moon every night for two months???

[squarebracket-trickster]

we shall attempt to write now.

[squarebracket-trickster]

Thank you, second draft me. Real specific.

[squarebracket-trickster]

To quote Isolda de Angenet herself:

“You can sew can’t you?” I mock. “I’m a lady. Of course I can fucking sew.”

-- WIPVII, p. 71 (Draft 2)

Can your character sew?

[squarebracket-trickster]

Apparently my mom can tell when I am writing my novel just by my posture???

I have been working on my computer for a few hours now but I only just opened my draft up to start a writing session. Two sentences in my mom goes, "are you working on your novel?" Me: "yes?" Her: "your posture changed."

Help. I can't stop thinking about this.

[squarebracket-trickster]

My feet are very toasty. Toes by the fireplace. The house is dark. Everybody's asleep.

I shall write!

(Once I refill my water glass. But I have to leave the toasty fireplace. Wish me luck.)