#zero drafting

[bebewrites]

I promise I searched your blog, but how do you (specifically) zero draft? The post that showed up in a search of your blog was like, bullet point writing whatever is in your head for the.wip, which I think is v cool and would help me finish lofm! So I'm curious how you do it!

Oh yes, okay! I don't think I've actually explained it anywhere, but I love talking about this.

what is a zero draft?

The great thing about a zero draft is that you can pretty much make it whatever you need it to be. For me, I was having a hard time with the middle of my story. I've started and stopped this wip so many times, always getting hung up at the same part as I approach the middle. I've always had a very clear picture of the beginning and the end, but never how to get all the way through from point A to point B. My original outline had things in brackets like [character growth] and [plot stuff], but what does that mean!?

My goal was to get all the way through. So I opened a blank document, started at the beginning, and literally rambled and talked my way through the entire story. I didn't write real prose. It was all stream of consciousness. It was me describing what happens in the story as if I was telling it to a friend. The zero draft was my rubber duck. This was my brainstorming document. I used common vernacular and slang and abbreviations. There are bullet points, numbered lists, sidebars where I rambled about a scene I completely forgot to mention in a previous section. Lots of comments about things I need to include in the next draft. Literally anything and everything I thought of went into the zero draft.

A zero draft can be as long or short as you need it to be. Mine ended up being around 40k words. But I've seen other people say a zero draft is 10k to 20k words. It's really up to you! And when you feel like you've covered enough of the story to move on to the next draft.

And you don't have to go about a zero draft the way I did! Recently, an author I love and follow on instagram (Casey McQuiston) shared in their stories that when they were writing their most recent book, they zero drafted each chapter before they wrote it out. Casey said that because of this, it was first time they didn't have major edits and rewrites afterwards. So if you find yourself needing a little more structure and sense of where you're going, I think a zero draft could be super helpful!

Of course you don't have to have a zero draft, and if you've got a good sense of the plot and character arcs, you might not need one. But it can be a great way to brainstorm and figure out those things if you need to!

[catchingbigfish]

here are some indulgent conversion re-write updates!

tbh my monthly updates are always more pessimistic than they need to be, but this month it was really because of how bereft i am without an outline, tbh. i knew i needed to redo my zero draft because of the changes i'm making to the 3rd quarter, which obviously impact the ending (and more on that in a bit), but i still hadn't gotten around to it. plus, i'm condensing the first act so thoroughly that i really needed to get it in shape asap, and i got juuuuuuuust the right amount of stoned today to really knock that out. i have a preliminary zero draft for the full re-write, and the major changes plotted out.

so, the major changes: i described this as going from a semi-horror, dark litfic novel about cults, coercive control, and killing your idols, to a heartwarming tale of ride-or-die women's friendships outliving abusive mentors, but what i really wanted was to write both. the answer was so much easier than i'd anticipated, which was that i had the wrong person committing the murder, so i feel very much like the we're back -> it's over -> we're so back meme.

also, hilariously, the ending will remain... largely the same. i knew where i was going in the first draft, obviously, and just kind of changed out what exactly happened to the person who was supposed to get murdered, so re-plotting the ending is mostly a question of re-fitting the murder into the story and making sure the ending is tonally accurate for what i was going with, there.

so, i've finished the 1st quarter, know exactly where i'm going with the 2nd, and have a good sense of the 3rd and 4th quarters, and i can easily proceed through the 2nd quarter and work on the zero draft for the last half as i go. i'm definitely more optimistic from here out!

[writing-passion-is-a-candle]

Car Gone Rogue Zero Draft Day 3 Update

Hello, everyone! Hope everyone is doing well! Yesterday was my third consecutive day working on Car Gone Rogue! It was the second day in a row that I had added over a thousand words to a draft of Car Gone Rogue! Neither had happened the first time around! I decided to lower the minimum word count target of the draft from 37,500 words to 25,000 words. I realized that this would be a much more…

[superhoeva]

you nudge soap one night, and he turns to you with sleepy eyes.

“s’wrong, bonnie?”

you tell him it’s nothing. you just wanted to see if he wanted a midnight snack. the man is perking up before you can explain what you meant, smiling brightly and ripping the blanket off the both of you. ignoring your sputters, soap is in between your legs in record time, only having enough patience to pull the cotton to the side before dipping his tongue straight against your clit.

“fu-johnny, i meant food. actual food…” you trail off with a gasp, hurrying to grab at his hair, the suckle of his lips force a shiver through your legs.

“fuck yer food,” he smacks, spitting on your hole, and diving back in. “got the perfect meal right here…”

(gaz's version here!)

[shushmal]

Okay but a sci-fi/futuristic au where at the very tender age of 10 Dustin codes his first ai program (I know, triggering right now, bear with me) presumably to be just an online assistant type thing to keep his mom or his adoptive brother off his back, to text his friends back so they don’t think he died in the middle of a science experiment, and to play his music while he works. To play video games with him since his friends don’t want to as much anymore.

He names it Eddie, because it’s pretty buggy in the beginning and keeps playing this ancient metal band.

Anyways Dustin doesn’t really notice that Eddie’s kind of become a little more than your regular ai assistant when Steve scowls at him and says, “Hey, your computer is being a dick to me.”

When he looks, he realizes Eddie’s chat algorithm has evolved to include personality. So Dustin, being the responsible scientist he is, absolutely helps it evolve more. And swears Steve to secrecy. Steve luckily loves Dustin and doesn’t want him sent to jail.

By the time he’s packing for university, Eddie had cultivated his own developed voice, a sprite for himself to show up at inopportune times, and a near decade-long beef with his brother.

“Dustin! Your robot is being a bitch to me again!”

“Your music sucks Steve-o, that’s not bitching, that’s facts,” Eddie’s voice calls from a near by speaker, sounding deeply pleased with himself.

“He’s not a robot,” Dustin groans for what feels like the millionth time. Yet, he adds internally, however. He is going to school for biomechanics for a reason.

So, of course, being the responsible scientist, Dustin makes an illegal android.

And just to piss Steve off more, he makes Eddie taller than him.

And Eddie, who has become Dustin’s closest friend, is overwhelmed and over joyed. They spend months just hanging out, introducing Eddie to his friends. It’s great. Eddie is so much like a real person that Dustin kind of forgets he’s not.

So of course Eddie reminds him in the worst way.

A few weeks of avoidance and hijinks later finds Dustin in his spare bedroom, hands over his eyes, screeching "please tell me you did not fuck my brother?" followed very quickly by "please tell mE YOU DID NOT FUCK MY ILLEGAL ROBOT."

[potato-lord-but-not]

Potato Lord I am a big fan of your Picrew. I often have used it in the past to design the Muppets as if they were real human people. I wish Kermit could be a real person sometimes because I think he would have kind and soft eyes and he would hold me with his human muppet hands and tell me everything would be okay

got this back in March and never replied. but here we are because I didn’t realize I was in the presence of a celebrity. Godspeed. never send me things.

[waddingham]

—the mirror crack'd from side to side

[samglyph]

Arthur Lester manages to win dad of the year on a technicality.

[vile-br4t]

10 ways from Sunday you’ll wanna kill her

[marggri]

Ground dragons!

[bloomingnewwrld]

Lover to lover

[bebewrites]

“Asher,” a familiar voice says, and it again clears the haze in his head. “Do you know where you are?" Brown eyes float above him, surrounded by tan skin and a crease between dark brows. A delicate golden crown crests a waterfall of midnight black waves. Shadows slice through his mind. Fire and furies and a scorched voice full of embers. “Deadlands,” Asher manages, his throat scratchy. The princess straightens and he immediately regrets his choice of words. Her frown deepens. She looks over her shoulder at the guard behind her and back to him. “Is that really what people call this place?"

the night veil + taglist below the cut

@aninkwellofnectar @stand-inthe-rain @pinespittinink @lyssthewriter @pen-of-roses @eluari @starry-sky-stuff @achilleid @houndmouthed @mr-writes @laufire-writes @thebluesthourcommunity @flowerprose @kaatiba

[phonification]

ive been thinking about taco and balloon forming a little alliance post s1/ pre s2 where they'd (begrudgingly) work together planning on how to break into hotel OJ to steal stuff to take back to their makeshift camp like food, blankets, pillows, etc,,, anything that could be useful to them

[writing-passion-is-a-candle]

5K Words Zero-Drafted for Car Gone Rogue in Only 2 Days! 🎉

Hello, everyone! A HAPPY NEW BEGINNING NOW IS MINE! I’m so excited to be able to share this milestone with you all: My zero draft has passed 5,000 words! How is it possible? Sit back and let me tell you the story. Hello, everyone! I’m so excited to be able to share this milestone with you all: My zero draft has passed 5,000 words! How is it possible? Sit back and let me tell you the…

[odd-chips]

So I've been teasing this character in my tags/posts for a while, and she's finally hereeee. Anyways WHOOPS, another self indulgent Lethal Company character who is basically the Wario version of [Cap'n]!

Meet Echo and her crewmates: Orion (goggle'd circle-shaped one), Spade (short one with big arms), and Guy (shapely GNC one). Being the opposite of Cap'n's crew, they're all men EXCEPT for Echo!

At first, she started out as a grown woman having a one-sided, very pathetic beef with Cap'n, but she evolved into an angry teenager who projects all of her issues onto someone who literally doesn't know she exists (and subsequently does something horrible to herself to rectify this weird beef). Did it work? Well no, come on, look at her, now she's even worse GOKJDFMKDF

And when I say "one-sided", I mean it. Genuinely Cap'n doesn't know who she is, like, at all. I think the first time they meet will be the inevitable werewolf fight between the two of them when things get out of hand.

Anyways I love the kidnapper fox, but alas, she was too swag for this world, RIP to a real one that lasted a month and a half. u_u)!!

[papathe5th]

Papa V Perpetua, performing KTGG: You want a kiss?

Papa Zero, watching the recording over Frater Imperator’s shoulder: That’s my boy!

Frater Imperator: We’re gonna have to kill the new guy, Judith!

Judith, hiding the phone she uses to talk to [REDACTED]: Boss, I’m just the social media—

Frater Imperator, covering his ears upon hearing the forbidden two words: UGHHHAAAGHHH!