First drafts

My first drafts always seem to lack the meat that every story needs. They consistently exist of the bones plus a little fat, but not the meat. For some, I know that they have the problem of getting everything in there and cutting back. But for me, it's a case of getting everything that happens down, then expand on this with emotions, thoughts, actual meat.

I'm not sure how many other people have this problem of including too little information the first time around, but I like working this way. The first draft let's me get the story down, let's me get the main cast of characters that are going to participate within the story. I know what happens first, second, third and so on.

The second draft is when I start to expand on this. I add thoughts, emotions. I tweak what happens to accommodate extra material in terms of character and history. I add tiks, nervous habits, family members. The second draft is when everything seems to flourish.

What I've heard people say before is that the first draft is just to get the story down. Seriously. You know what direction you want your story to go in? Write in. Forget about your character's emotions, thoughts and desires. Have them reacting and acting to the events that take place and get the story down. In the second draft you can bulk it out and make it better. You can humanise the characters then.

That's what my second draft of Redux is for, humanising the characters so that you, as a reader, feel more sympathetic to what happens to them.

Happy writing.