Currently about 250,000 words (of 350,000) into my fourth draft of A Memory of Light . This is the hardest of the drafts. Next one should go faster.
How many drafts do you usually do on your novels?
Between eight and twelve, if you count the proofreads.
Curious… How many drafts is typical for you?
Between eight and twelve.
Do you from scratch on each draft?
No, I don’t start from scratch most times. Only in extreme cases. A “Draft” for me is a complete, beginning-to-end, revamp of the book line by line. About half of the drafts are deep content drafts, the other half focus on prose.
Re: Timing—Yes, we’re still on track for January. (I still secretly hope for sooner.)
Curious what makes this one the hardest.
This one is the hardest because it’s the first one I do where I have to fix problems Team Jordan has found. That is difficult, as sometimes I’ve written entire sequences that have continuity errors with something in the series, so those sequences need to be pulled out and replaced with something that works.
Does it get longer and shorter from draft to draft?
Some drafts make the book shorter, others longer. Usually, prose focused drafts shorten the book while content drafts make it longer.
Brandon, you’ve probably explained the draft system before, but for the uneducated can you possibly explain it again to me please?
Sure. First draft is my initial write of the book. Second draft is where I go through and fix major problems I introduced while writing the book. (For example, sometimes I’ll add a character in because I find I need one, but I don’t go back and revise them into earlier chapters until the second draft.) Third draft is a polish, fixing language and prose. Fourth draft is my first editorial draft, working with the editor to fix problems. Fifth is a second editorial draft. From there, I alternate between further polishing drafts and smaller-level editorial drafts as long as needs be.
Re: Stormlight—It’s next. I will begin it as soon as A Memory of Light is done right. Likely, I’ll start into it after draft five or six of A Memory of Light .
RE: Length—This will be slightly longer than Towers of Midnight, I believe.
Re: Stormlight 2—It is next, I promise. I’m very eager to start, but I have to make sure A Memory of Light is done right first. You don’t get many chances to work on a book like this one.
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