Craft Talk: Getting Through a First Draft

I recently was reading a novel by JA Schneider and reached out to

her given her background as a former writer at Newsweek. 

What led Joyce to writing for Newsweek was her previous – and sometimes wild – experience studying in Paris, then being an exchange student in the Soviet Union where she promptly got arrested for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda. She next wound up in a Soviet hospital after falling down a ravine during a hike near Sochi. (To find out more, read here on Goodreads.) She thinks the Soviets were glad to see her leave.

Now things are calmer for her, if you call writing suspense thrillers calmer.

So, I posed this question to Joyce: How do you get through the first draft of a novel, which must be very different than writing for Newsweek.

Joyce - 
For me, the first draft is the hardest. I do a lot of brainstorming first, and start with a pretty good idea of the story’s beginning and end. But until recently that long, vast middle was the hardest. Finally, it hit that what works best for me is this: Your subconscious knows what it wants, just get out of the way.

Once past the setup, I just keep writing not knowing what to expect, and the characters often surprise me. Or not, but I keep going. In the long run it’s more fun that way. The caveat, though, is accept that you have to do it wrong first. We’re not writers; we’re rewriters. Consider your first draft as just the sand you’re shoveling into the sand box; later you’ll make the sand castle. Or consider the first draft as simply weaving the cloth; later you’ll cut it into a fine garment. Few writers know what they’re doing till after they’ve done it. So just fall into the story. Spew away till you get that 80K word rough draft down - then revise and polish.

It’s hard, and it doesn’t get easier. Every writer has gone through agony. Your story will get done, because it wants to. Trust in that. Trust in yourself.

Fiona - 
Good advice!

Joyce has authored the 6-book EMBRYO medical thriller series, the 4-book police/psychological thrillers featuring NYPD Detective Kerri Blasco, and the standalone thrillers Into the Dark, Girl Watching You, and What You’ve Done. 

I read her book What Have You Done. 

This is my review:

I am a huge fan of books that focus on smart, brave, tenacious women. I am a sucker for plot lines that sharpen my reasoning, characters that are psychologically complex, and endings where the unimaginable is imagined. 

This was my first J. A. Schneider novel. I was reading it during the beginning of the pandemic where many readers, like me, find the unfolding events create monkey mind and an inability to settle into a story. 

I'm delighted that in What You've Done, Schneider's world building and dynamic writing kept me involved with her characters and rooting for justice until the last page. Extremely well executed.

If you'd like to get in touch with Joyce:
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Best wishes on your draft!

Fiona