How to Write a Zero Draft

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How to Write a Zero Draft

Рет қаралды 5,566

Күн бұрын

What is a zero draft? It's a preliminary draft that comes before the first draft--AKA the roughest of rough drafts. A zero draft sits somewhere between and outline and a first draft, and can be a crucial tool for many writers who want an overall sketch of their story, that they can then fill in in more detail. Let's talk about whether a zero draft is right for you, and how to write one.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - What is a zero draft?
1:35 - Benefits of zero drafting
2:25 - Why it might not be for you
4:51 - Why it might work for you
6:51 - How to zero draft
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Пікірлер: 37

@carlarodriguesalmeida471 4 ай бұрын

My zero drafts are all about developing an idea to the end. My characters come off cheese, several clichés, and many plot holes. But if I can finish it, I know I can make something out of it.

@gothicwriter9897 4 ай бұрын

I may zero draft. I call it draft A. I write notes in a notebook, sometimes research, sometimes random ideas. When I am ready I write draft A at 100 miles an hour - no stopping or editing - well 1,000 words an hour. I add notes as they come to me in red so I know they are not part of draft A. This gives me far more interesting plots. Lee Child in his BBC Maestro course explains brilliantly why he thinks pantsing produces better stories.

@nicolegibson6150 11 күн бұрын

I'm writing my firs novel, and discovering the concept of a zero draft was a game changer.I was struggling to get passed the curse of the abondended first draft. It helped me move past self-doubt as if it gave me permission to be bad. It helped me work out if I was pantser or plotter. I wasn't worried about a lot of the technical side of writing a novel which gave me the freedom to just write.

@sarahalbert6833 4 ай бұрын

I zero draft because I’m a discovery writer and start with the scenes, events and characters I see in my head, making notes, writing dialogue between characters and any research I need all goes into the zero draft. This way my characters, plot and story develop themselves along the way. I generally tackle structure later and try to piece everything together into a working story. This works for me because I don’t like to outline or work in a linear fashion. I started my novel in the middle and went back and forth until I knew how the story would end and how it would begin. It’s a messy way of crafting a novel but works for me.

@aaronhunyady 4 ай бұрын

This is a really insightful video. The zero draft is ultimately, anything you want it to be. It can be one scene or the whole book. You're making an agreement with your inner critic that you're intending to write garbage and it's OK because sometimes there is good stuff in the garbage.

@r.e.holding 4 ай бұрын

I'm actually a character-driven writer, but I just discovered zero drafting, and it was, like, an epiphany for me, haha! I think it can still really work for character-driven stories because, in my case, the groundwork was already laid for all my characters. I had an outline and knew who they were and what they were going to do, but with the zero drafts; it was basically "scene vomit." I wrote the zero draft in 2 days (about 10K words), and now I'm fleshing it out based on the rough scene guidelines.

@AbigailPennyfeather 4 ай бұрын

This was a great video! Informative and helpful. I made a zero draft for the first time before doing NaNo this past year and I loved it! One thing about me as a writer is I'm really good at characters and dialogue, but I honestly really struggle with descriptions. So when I made my zero draft it was more like a script. I would put the occasional note about scenes and actions, but it was mostly just dialogue between my two main characters. It allowed me to explore the story the way I first experience it, and then when I made my first draft I could dedicate more time and brain-space to everything else. And I write a lot of romance, so doing this helped me really experience my characters' relationship and how it developed before fully drafting. Plus, with so much dialogue written out I could copy-paste what I had written and I got through my first draft much faster (which helped with the 50k word goal lol) But now I plan to start all my stories with a zero draft. That's just how my brain works and this is a great tool for me!

@JackManhire Ай бұрын

My zero drafts are an amalgamation of all the things you mentioned: scene summaries, dialogue volleys without tags, some fully-crafted chapters. I find that they end up about 1/3 to 1/2 the finished first draft. I typically start with the premise and write a chapter or two so I can meet my characters and get to know the important aspects of their personalities and features. For example, I didn't know one of my side characters had a thick Savannah accent until I started writing the dialogue volley. After I meet the characters, I'll put down a loose thread of the story (I hate the term "outline") and make sure I have the required elements of a good story: inciting incident, Act I turn, midpoint, Act II turn (rock bottom), and climax confrontation. The resolution usually doesn't present itself until later. Then I go a start crafting the vital scenes/chapters. I found through trial and error that crafting the confrontation/climax is a good first move because you find what you need to include in earlier chapters so the action in the climax makes sense. Then I work on completing the first draft.

@milestrombley1466 4 ай бұрын

I call it a skeleton draft. I write chapter beats in each chapter. Sometimes I wrote my novel as a script first before I convert it.

@ProjectMathesar 3 ай бұрын

This is actually genius. I have to start doing this.

@gregorykollarus8190 4 ай бұрын

Love ur channel 🎉🎉🎉 I always love your content

@absolutelycitron1580 4 ай бұрын

Yes ty! I'm just about to finish mine

@veganphilosopher1975 4 ай бұрын

When you outline a zero draft that way, I'm not sure I could do it, either. I'd like to consider it maybe a thought dump. Allowing myself to write the scenes out of order, filler info I know will be changed, drastic changes in the middle, and just rolling with it. At that point, we're just escalating the first draft to a mature work and Second to a polished work.

@MK-fi6mh 4 ай бұрын

thank you

@lavendertheflower4352 4 ай бұрын

oh shit is this what i’ve partially been doing 😅

@marjoriedybec3450 4 ай бұрын

super interesting.

@Murderface666 4 ай бұрын

I draft by chapter loosely the main points, just to get to the end first, then draft over that adding loose chapters in between. Then I rough out one chapter to see where I think it might fit. It may or may not stay, but its purpose for me is primarily to keep the creative juices flowing.

@gao1812 4 ай бұрын

Thx for sharing ❤

@PatIreland-tw9lr 4 ай бұрын

I’m currently working on a zero draft for my sci-fi thriller WIP. The main appeal for me is it will allow me to work out the big picture issues of plot, character, and structure, without having to worry about all those worldbuilding details I haven’t figured out yet. Writing a mini-draft with an exclusive focus on plot, subplots, and character arcs allows me to just write, without becoming overwhelmed by the nuances of setting, dialogue, pacing, voice, and everything else involved in creating an actual manuscript. Those layers can be added later. But by then, I will at least have a working story with the bare bones already in place. I won’t be trying to do everything at once. This sense of being overwhelmed by details is probably my #1 cause of writer’s block. Tackling these details one category at a time seems easier than assembling them in a pile and wondering where to start.

@TJ-fv9vs 4 ай бұрын

Thanks so much for sharing this! I'm always curious to learn more about how to streamline the writing process 😊 Are there perhaps books about the subject of outlining, drafting, or zero drafting that you would recommend for a further deep dive into this topic? Thanks!

@user-zb8qo4oz3s 4 ай бұрын

Wow thanks! I honestly had no idea that there was a name for what I did. I always just said I outline so much it's basically rough draft. Now I can say I zero draft! I hate editing though. I love the process of planning out my story before I fully write it. I can usually draft a story in a few hours. I also write a base outline that just includes the beginning, middle, and end in a paragraph or two first, then I write a more detailed outline with all my scene beats. There can be some minor changes as I write my first full draft, but I find that I don't need to change a whole lot. Except for my current WIP but that's because I'm writing outside my typical genre and ended up writing it way too long and had to split it up.

@absolutelycitron1580 4 ай бұрын

10 pages?!??!? I thought mine was too skinny at like 100 lol

@punkrockbrewer 4 ай бұрын

Zero draft helps beginners a lot

@thecriticalgoose 4 ай бұрын

Lovely explanation, but as a visual learner I would have liked some visual examples of what a zero draft is. Perhaps an idea to keep in mind.

@absolutelycitron1580 4 ай бұрын

I'm completely new to writing so idk if I'm in the place to be giving out tips to anybody but all I do is tell. Pure telling no dialouge. The difference between that and ehen i was trying to write everything is like 500 words in a day vs. 5000 in one day. So it is faster, but I just really really want to get to the editing phase now that I know how the story ends

@giovannijacobs4496 4 ай бұрын

I haven't used a zero draft but I have deleted whole books before because they weren't good enough.

@weyjosh5213 4 ай бұрын

hello, everytime i try to log in to my reedsy i get a 403 error on all my devices despite using different networks too. how may i fix this? i miss writing on the site :(

@OnaiwaGamon2004 Ай бұрын

Hello! I have a big question! I’ve realized through this video that I’m a zero drafter who focuses on detail and going in depth on character and can easily write thousands of words at a time describing how my characters think and feel. I then use what I know about the characters to expand the plot in zero draft form as well. My problem is that I have never written out a proper first draft because I never think I’ve developed my story enough, but at the same time the initial time I write my ideas is what brings me the most joy to write, so rewriting it as a proper draft is a struggle. I’ve been writing my series like this for 9 years and I feel very weak in my ability to write out my ideas in a genuine narrative form. Does anyone have any tips for how I can overcome this and begin to write my series into real drafts? That is my big goal right now, but it’s very confusing.

@gao1812 4 ай бұрын

I suppose those of us who edit as they write should be called "no drafters" then? 🤔 I don't know...I'm a heavy plotter so I don't dare begin on a scene/chapter unless I'm a 1000% sure it is solid, then I write and edit as I write until I have a finished, virtually "perfect"* chapter. *unless, of course, any flaw has eluded my scrutiny.

@JanelleKennedy-cc4by 4 ай бұрын

Might be an unpopular strategy, but I found entering all of my current character descriptions, scenes, and beats into AI to get it to generate a very dumbed down version of each chapter helped me get a (terrible) 20k word zero draft within a few hours. I can immediately tell what does and doesn't work in my plotline. Makes the initial plot restructuring so much easier

@dollyshelter 4 ай бұрын

What AI you use to do that?

@JanelleKennedy-cc4by 4 ай бұрын

@@dollyshelter either GPT 4 or most recently I've been using Claude Opus

@beegonzales7513 3 ай бұрын

Good to know that my 10,000 word “outline” isn’t really an outline 😂

@beegonzales7513 3 ай бұрын

Also, I zero draft character first, interview style Al la Brandon Sanderson 😂

@madhurakale1318 Ай бұрын

Hello

@LeonDeLaMole 4 ай бұрын

I didn't know that is what it was called. Very good. I also heard from Hugh Howey to skip the scenes you can't write and come back later, to keep your momentum. Praise Jesus, King of kings!

@Kiki-alienmom 24 күн бұрын

My first zero draft is evolving from an attempt to outline after a long ongoing brain dump. I needed to flesh out enough of my story to see how things have to happen in the story, but by then I KNOW some of the bunnies and even full scenes that I want to put in my story, so I'm plotting/zero drafting in one document with outlined plot points/beats as headings, then points, phrases, or entire paragraphs where I know what needs to happen at a certain point in the story. I'm sure my process will become more efficient as I continue working, but this allowed me to realize that my story was going to be a 3-book series. Yes, it looks like a hot mess now, but I've made a ton of progress in the past few months after 5 years of kicking this story around blindly. I'm so excited to continue! Yay zero drafts, whatever that looks like for everyone. Write on y'all! 🫶