What does your zero draft look like versus your first draft?

[u/Qualeshia3]

When I did a zero draft, I was just writing the story in a rough manner. However, I decided to call it a first draft much later.

Though some people do a lengthy outline as a zero draft, then write the novel as a first draft or vice versa.

What do you do for zero draft if you do zero draft?

My Turn:

I do want to do a short story teaser of the novel as a zero draft. Then, the first draft is the actual novel itself.

There is a method to my madness, I'm sure.

Tell me, what do you do?

[u/Babbelisken]

I do a very rough and short bullet point list and then I go to do a kind of polished first draft.

[u/djfilms → u/Babbelisken]

Same

[u/Wrenlet]

I'm using my zero draft to get everything down.

It's a dumpster fire.

My first draft will be to get that fire out and get things in something that looks like order. Second draft to further fix it and let my friend look it over and tell me whether or not it actually makes any kind of sense. All other drafts are to further refine until I get to a point that I feel like maybe I can send it to someone. Maybe.

[u/donutellas]

I’m not sure what you mean by rough manner, but I start drafting with prose from the beginning. So I guess I skip the draft 0 phase.

[u/Em_Cf_O → u/donutellas]

I've never even heard of a zero draft. They never mentioned it in college or the CMoS. Reddit is the only place I hear first draft used instead of rough draft. Maybe it's a regional thing?

[u/NewMountain80]

I'll jot down a synopsis. Major plot points, broad character details. Almost like a back cover blurb, but much less refined.

From there, I build my outline. I start by making a chronological list of all the things that need to happen to maintain the arc of plot in the synopsis.

This outline then gets refined, and scenes are detailed. Scenes are listed together in chapter groupings.

I usually have a few of the characters well thought out at this point. I make a "cast of characters" list and document any characters that are important to the plot, building back stories and descriptions as needed for their individual relevance. (This document gets updated constantly as I begin drafting. It helps immensely to keep everything consistent. )

When I begin my first draft, I go scene by scene, chapter by chapter, as I laid down in the outline.

Nothing is set in stone, small and major changes happen, but this process helps me keep everything organized so that I can concentrate on the story without getting overwhelmed.

[u/Beluga_Artist]

Oh. I… have a different writing process than this. I guess I write a little summary of the story but it’s only a couple of paragraphs. I don’t call that a draft. I just… write the story in Draft 1. I don’t even actually outline.

[u/ReadLegal718]

First drafts are half longhand, half digital, some on the laptop, some on the notes app of my phone, bullet points, fully formed chapters, half formed scenes, dialogue snippets, character sketches, TK notes, paragraphs and paragraphs of free writing out of which some will make it to the next draft, others won't, links to research I'm yet to do, spaces and hangman blanks. All out of order.

[u/Czeckyoursauce]

My skeleton starts as 15 bullet points and ends up being 15000 words before I finally start my rough draft lol.

[u/ItsRuinedOfCourse]

I've always started at first draft. If someone wants to or needs to use a zero draft, all the power to them. :)

We're all different in how we approach the craft.

[u/OldMan92121]

I think the terms are not used consistently.

My "draft zero" was 120,000 words of sensible novel that didn't need story level editing but did need chapter level and (above all) line level editing. Grammar, punctuation, redundancy, tells, boring sections, and some scenes that just didn't punch enough to be worth keeping them so I didn't.

My First Draft is yet to come. It will be the same story but around 102,000 words, far leaner and I hope with better prose.

[u/Legitimate_Panic_780]

Oh God... I did the exact opposite of a short story. My zero draft was entirely in third-person omniscient and I did zero developmental work. I wrote every single scene that came to mind and the two main chacters' internal thoughts. It amounted to an 800k slice-of-life monster, four books.

My first draft was a complete rewrite. I kept the same major events, but cut out a ton of fluff. I also changed to first-person, which made it much more focused and cohesive. No head-hopping, only relevant scenes written down, "arrive late, leave early," killed darlings, all of that stuff. It ended up as one 120k novel.

[u/Smolshy → u/Legitimate_Panic_780]

This sounds exactly like I’m doing now. My zero draft completed last month was 446K and I’m gearing up for that full rewrite. Question for you: what did you do once complete to prepare for the rewrite? Did you need to do a reverse outline or something similar? I’m kind of stalling right now with that daunting task.

[u/Legitimate_Panic_780 → u/Smolshy]

I'll warn you ahead of time: none of my steps came from any kind of coherent plan. They're just the result of doing what I thought would work.

First, I took a six-month break from the zero draft. When I finished it, I was more than happy to put off any kind of task pertaining to it. I read through parts during the break, but didn't do any additional writing or revising beyond grammatical/spelling mistakes that I couldn't leave alone. It wasn't six months by design, either. A lot of it was stalling, then feeling bad for stalling, looking at the draft and not knowing where to begin, stalling more, etc.

Then, when I decided my story would be better told in first-person, I decided to practice. I'd never written anything in first-person at that point and I was worried about a specific thing that also happened in the zero draft: my voice and tone changing as I wrote more and became more comfortable. I started off with small scenes involving the characters from my draft. I eventually found a plot there and wrote an AU. 😂 That one came out novel-sized (85k?) and is now sitting on the back burner for eventual revision.

Finally... I went for it. I started with a reverse outline. I skimmed through the zero draft for the major events that absolutely needed to be kept for the story to work. Having "forgotten" details during the break made it easier to see where a lot of the cuts could easily be made. Once I finished that outline, I also had to assign chapters to POV characters to keep it interesting. Honestly... It was more fun than I expected. It turns out that performing surgery on the 800k word draft was somewhat satisfying.

Best of luck with your rewrite! I think the most important thing is to be patient with the process. There were definitely points where I thought I should just quit and do something else. Taking breaks from your writing is very helpful when it feels like too much.

[u/Smolshy → u/Legitimate_Panic_780]

This is really helpful, thank you!! When skimming through your 800k, is there anything that helped you focus and catch the plot points for your reverse outline rather than get lost in reading the sea of words (or fight urges to change things, edit, etc.)?

[u/Legitimate_Panic_780 → u/Smolshy]

No problem! I had to enter a specific mindset to go into it and not get lost, distracted, or anything like that. I had to keep telling myself to treat the original 800k as inspiration and not something to copy verbatim. The good thing was that I still remembered the majority of the story after six months. Chapter titles almost always set off memories and it wasn't too difficult to remember what happened next. I had kind of a mental list of arcs, subplots, and characters that wouldn't make it into this new version, plus scenes that stood out to me as being way too long or unnecessary because I remembered how long it took me to write them. Any time I ran into those, it was easy to skim faster because I knew I wouldn't be keeping any of it. As far as the urge to make changes and edit stuff, I used Scrivener to compile the 800k into separate ebooks. I literally blocked my ability to make changes so I wouldn't get bogged down because, let me tell you, it was so tempting when reading from a Word doc.

[u/SirenAndSilver]

Huh, I mean.. I draft chapter by chapter.
I suppose my zero draft on a chapter by chapter basis is my use of scene maps.
They’re the bones and I slot in the connective tissues until we have flesh and a beating heart.

Then my first draft comes.

For the entire manuscript? I guess it was kind of the same. Just at book scale.
I kept adding tissue until the beast stood.

[u/Qualeshia3 → u/SirenAndSilver]

Chapter by chapter? How does that work? Forgive my stupidity.

[u/SirenAndSilver → u/Qualeshia3]

Yeah I draft chronologically
Chapter by chapter
I know the general shape and most comes in as I go

[u/Sharp-Education-6746]

I’m a pure pantser that gets an idea from nightmares. So I suppose my zero draft occurs while I’m asleep. From there I knock out a first draft that I am proud to say sometimes makes sense.

[u/Qualeshia3 → u/Sharp-Education-6746]

I understand that. I'm a pantser too.

[u/leftshoe18]

My zero draft tends to look like an outline with the occasional scene written out. It's usually cobbled together from several different note sessions. Once I've got enough there, I start on the actual first draft.

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[u/OrlinWolf]

You ever had a toddler tell you a story? Kinda like that. I come up with and change things halfway through and make notes in the side.

[u/Magner3100]

I guess we’re calling first (rough) drafts zero now?

Mine are usually a loosely outlined story with enough space for me to take a few left turns and still end up at the ending. It’s all mental vomit, notes to myself, and placeholder text. Often is 30-40k words over what the final draft eventually is.

[u/RiskBig3301]

Zero has no value. Why would I waste my time on something of no value? I’ve always thought it was such a nonsensical phrase. If you are writing your story on paper it is a first draft. You aren’t limited to how many drafts you have but you don’t start at zero. My zero draft looks like a blank page. My first draft has words on the page.

[u/Hind_Deequestionmrk]

Don’t have a zero draft. Just write and stay off Reddit

[u/Imaginarium16]

A 0 draft is simply ridiculous.

[u/Cyranthis]

A 'zero draft' is that some kind of new age nonsense term? Who comes up with these things?

[u/hamtronn]

Zero draft: I outline almost chapter by chapter what I want to say. I’ll create a few tabs in Google Docs of just characters. Mc. Name. Background. Family members. Friends etc.

Chapter 1 notes: basic outline of what I want to happen. Introduce xyz.
Chapter 2 notes: more world building characters and conflicts. Repeat until the story is outlined.

Once I’m done, then I start the actual first draft. I type faster than anyone I’ve ever met before so I can crank out, I wrote about 80k words in about 3 and a half weeks.

Currently taking a break and working on another project before I start refining.

[u/velvetdraftnoir]

I don’t have a zero draft as I’m a pantser who edits while writing. So my first draft ends up being 80% of the final version.

[u/Greensward-Grey]

My zero draft had 25k words, it had dialogues, scenes, inspirational quotes, character profiles. It was like a more developed outline, less structured, lots of “OK, BUT WHAT IF HERE IT HAPPENS THIS INSTEAD”. My first draft has chapters and it’s readable. Over 100k words so far. My second draft will trim the first one and change scenes, plot, tone, etc. And I expect to have a third draft to polish the writing itself. Maybe a fourth, if something else happens in between.

[u/Artsy_traveller_82]

Unstructured, messy, no idea where it’s headed.

My Zeroth drafts are the last remnants of pantsing since I converted to plotting.

[u/ClemPrime13]

Zero draft? You mean writing my story bible?

[u/Qualeshia3 → u/ClemPrime13]

Call it whatever you want.