The latest draft of the sci-fi adventure is moving along at a pleasantly brisk pace. Still averaging about 4-5 pages a day. The whole process this time around feels a lot more organized. Much more so than in the past.

The previous draft was 118 pages, and one of my many objectives for this one is to get it down to somewhere in the 105-110 range. I’m just about at the end of Act One, and it’s already 9 pages shorter than where it was at this point last time. Seems like the odds are in my favor to hit that page count goal.

But it’s taken a good deal of work to get here, including some shifts in my approaches.

Among the highlights:

-being more diligent in applying the “get in late, get out fast” approach to each scene. Although somewhat unavoidable for action sequences, doing what I can to use this as often as possible.

-cutting unnecessary dialogue. Never realized how much more I used to put in before. It’s been a real effort (and steep learning curve) to get the characters to only say what needs to be said, but it definitely helps get to the point of the scene quickly as well as moves things along.

-not being so detailed with action descriptions – by which I mean “what the characters are doing”, and not the fast-paced, high-octane thrilling moments. Focus on the important stuff. Don’t clutter up the page. Is it absolutely necessary to be so step-by-step about it? Nope.

-In a very “why didn’t I think of this before?” kind of way, having a hard copy of the outline and the previous draft have proven to be exceptionally helpful. The outline tells me what needs to happen in each scene, and the previous draft shows me not only what I did before, but gives me a starting point for potential changes.

-Taking that last item one step further, seeing how a scene played out before, combined with the applying the question of “how does this scene advance the plot, theme and character?” has enabled me to totally rewrite some scenes which before had felt kind of flat, but now read as stronger and help reinforce those three important components.

I managed to crank out the previous draft in about a month, and hoping to accomplish that this time around as well. Of course, a few ideas for more changes have popped up.  Nothing too severe, and I’m going back and forth about implementing them right away, or waiting for the cleanup-polish phase.

Every writer puts their material together in the way that works best for them. It took me a while to find mine, and it continues to be a work in progress. But if the latest results are any indicator, it’s working out quite nicely.