ATOTAT 0.7.2
I think I'm ready for the first draft?
Hello! It has occurred to me that the title of these posts should be the version that I’ve just finished, not the one that I’m heading into.
This substack is my writing journal for my portal romantasy, a project that I feel is the most complete, most real, and most on track to be ready for querying that I’ve ever written.
Review of Goals from Draft 0.7
Maximize all aspects of worldbuilding. This means that they serve multiple story purposes, tie back to theme, id list, and big idea, and push my MC toward the person she’s growing into
I’m very happy with the worldbuilding changes!
Finish by the end of February 2025 so I can FINALLY begin my real first draft, which I define as a draft that incorporates voice and style and is fully fleshed out without placeholder items like “they fight”.
It’s 2/22/25 and I’m ready to dive into a first draft?
What Is Draft 0.7.2?
Draft 0.7 was my seventh zero draft (basically an extended outline) where I made significant worldbuilding, plot, and/or character changes.
Draft 0.7.2 is when I went back to sprinkle in a few more things and make sure I wasn’t losing track of major plot lines.
Draft 0.6 was 19k words, and Draft 0.7.2 is only at 4k. A lot of the scenes and chapters that I had fleshed out in 0.6, I wrote as basic paragraphs because I didn’t feel the need to rehash parts that I felt like I was really familiar with already.
I’m feeling really positive about the changes I’ve made, and I think the story and world and characters are all stronger in 0.7.
Main Craft Lesson Learned
I recently got back into watching Alt Shift X videos on Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire. It never ceases to blow my mind how there can be hours and hours of videos speculating on the characters, world, history, lore, and mystery of a fantasy world. (Nerd of the Rings is my go-to for Lord of the Rings lore.)
It got my creative gears turning in a new (old) way, reminding me how much I love vast, epic, deep worlds with complicated, messy, interesting characters who are whole people with myriad wants, desires, and motivations.
The middle of the Venn diagram of romantasy and epic fantasy is a sparsely populated zone. They’re different subgenres for a reason. When I pick up a romantasy, I expect a sweeping love story to be front and center. When I pick up an epic fantasy, I expect expansive worldbuilding to be, if not front and center, extremely prominent.
Reader expectations aside, the word counts of romantasy doesn’t allow for as much sprawl as epics like ASOIAF. Not every book can afford to spend pages and pages on the food at feasts, nor spend the time required with dozens of characters and places to let the reader really get to know them.
I want to find a way to marry (see what I did there?) what I love about romantasy with what I love about epic fantasy.
It’s my deepest hope for ATOTAT to have as much epic fantasy feel as possible, to be a world that feels ancient and lived in, and for the people to be real and complex. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to fit into my goal of <100k, but I’ll try.
Wait, so what was the craft lesson?
Ah yes. The thing I’m keeping in mind to try to achieve this goal is to make sure the worldbuilding makes sense, and as much as possible, go back in the world’s history to know how and why we got here. The same with characters.
WHY is this person the way they are?
HOW does their culture/surroundings shape their world view?
WHAT hard choices have they had to make in the past and WHAT were the consequences?
And to remember that I am in control of the world and characters. If the Shadow Daddy is a hardened, closed-off, cynic, how can I flesh out the world and characters THAT I ALREADY HAVE to create the circumstances that made him so?
In one of the Turning to Story episodes I recently re-listened to (I can’t remember exactly which because I’ve been listening to a lot lately), Anna and Lyssa emphasized using the characters, magic system, and world that you already have when making revisions.
Don’t invent a whole new magic system when you can solve your problem with your existing one. Don’t upend the entire world and remake it when you can work within the worldbuilding already in place.
Sometimes things need to be upended because something’s broken, but when a lot is already established, it can have a more satisfying result if you work within that framework.
Go deeper into your world, don’t just make it wider.
Pacemaker Planner
I’ve also discovered and will be using Pacemaker Planner along with Scrivener to track my writing progress.
Goals for ATOTAT 1.0
Finish by the end of April 2025. (Maybe this is crazy)
Word count goals: 75k? (This seems arbitrary)
Hang on to all the plot threads as much as possible, but that’s what future drafts are for.
Feel like it’s a book-shaped thing.
Get the story down in its entirety. Don’t worry about making it pretty, just worry about getting the full story down!
See You at the End of April!
Maybe the goal of first draft by end of April is crazy, but I’ve gone so deep on my zero drafts that I think it might be possible.
My big goal is to query this year, and I need to get things moving!
I’m taking a week off of ATOTAT to participate in the Forest & Fawn Romantasy Short Story Challenge, so maybe that April goal…NO, let’s keep that pie-in-the-sky goal intact. If I go a little over, it’s fine.
I’m finally moving out of google docs and into Scrivener for Draft 1.0! It’s been a while since I’ve been in there, so I’m preparing to ignore most of the features and basically just use the notecards.
See you in May (hopefully!)