I wrote my last blog entry about the pre-rough draft and immediately received a response from

@ShawnScarber who pointed me to “It’s Just A Phase” by Lazette Gifford. 

This is one of those days when I want to hug Twitter.  I have an idea, I put it out there, and someone comes back with a wonderful reference that moves me leaps and bounds ahead of where I was.  Yippeee! 

When I first heard the phrase, “phase drafting” I thought the author referred to adding another phase to the writing process.  My thought:  you do drafting in phases.  Outline.  Pre-rough draft.  Rough draft.  Revision.  Revision.  Revision.

Then I printed out the article from Lazette Gifford and really studied it.  And I realized that she’s not using the word “phase” to relate to a phase in the writing process.  I had to let go of my pre-conceived ideas to understand. 

In her vocabulary, a phase is a piece of a scene. 

Oh, that changes everything.  Gifford’s idea is much more advanced than anything I was considering.  It’s so much more wonderful!

I think this is an outlining style that even a pantster would adore.  (Pantster=someone who plots on the fly, by the seat of one’s pants.  Still lost:  origin of the phrase.)

I was attempting to do the pre-rough draft by writing more about each chapter.  It was going okay, but the ideas weren’t flowing as well as they do in full rough-draft writing.

By breaking scenes into phases, the action flows.  There may be 300 or more phases to be developed in the rough draft.  Each phase becomes a writing prompt.

Gifford also presents good ideas about how to keep your writing on track for word count, how to set goals, when to add or subtract phases.  Her short article is a gold mine of information.

I admit when I first read through the article, I was distracted by the speed at which she was able to write using this method.  (I think that may be the reason it took me a while to understand her vocabulary.  Her words about writing a novel in days kept bouncing around in my head like writer-candy.)  As I think more about those of you getting ready for National Novel Writing Month, I can really see how this would help.  And hey, who wouldn’t want to write better faster?