I seem to have arrived at a method for drafting novels. It isn't the same in all details; no two projects are alike; but the essentials are beginning to take shape.
Zero drafting--writing anything and everything, getting the ideas down, figuring out by writing--is an extremely valuable technique for me. However, after a point I have to stop and think. Sometimes I must force my thinking into the back of my mind, in the hopes that my subconscious is smart, and continue writing whatever I can, bits of dialogue with the characters or whatever. Later, I lay out my thoughts in some kind of order. I make a list of scenes including both scenes I've already written and ones I need to fill in holes, not to mention laying out the entire shape of the novel. Writing the scenes down, roughly in order, brings my attention to events that are logically missing, so I am able to insert more scenes into my list. Or to leave a gap marked "stuff."
I might not write all of these scenes, and I will add others as I go, but it's an excellent starting place. I detail some scenes as the ideas came to me. Others are mere summaries, such as "Lucilla and Pascal part." I permit myself some gaps of causality, in the hope that the answers will come to me, either after I write more or after I think more.
And for the writing itself, I start out with disconnected scenes, whatever I can come up with, trying to use all the characters I've invented but not rushing if some don't give me scene ideas yet. Gradually, a plot shape begins to form in my mind, and I arrange the scenes roughly in order, keeping them all in a single file. Along the way, as well as the scene list; I might do an outline or synopsis, and make notes about characters of things that came to me but don't seem immediately relevant. In the draft file, I fill in missing material at different points, and if that missing material changes something in my original idea, I can easily find that spot and make the events/characterization/whatever match up. I don't insert the chapter breaks yet, though I'm beginning to have ideas of where they go.
Once I have a roughish draft, possibly with plot gaps, I'll break the file into separate chapter files, and then start filling in the remaining gaps, editing all the way. I'll probably print out the draft at various points, as it's easier for me to see some things on paper than on screen.
Once all the chapters I think I need are done, I print again, and do a paper edit. I enter those changes, and usually add a few more in the computer files. When it's in decent shape, I rejoin the chapters into a single file and print, and count it done. At least until I edit it some more.
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Victoria Janssen
The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover, Harlequin Spice, 12/08
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