: Re: How rough should a rough draft be For a long time I would edit chapters as I wrote them, to make them as complete as possible. Unfortunately this often resulted in me running out of steam

@Debbie451

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Placehold the highlights. Write the notes of what you want to accomplish.

Beth: Wow, that was really nice of the waiter.
Alanna: Do you think the boss will punish him for that?
they discuss if they should give him a big tip to make sure the boss doesn't dock him. Alanna wants to give the biggest tip she can afford; Beth thinks a large but not insane tip is enough. Show how Alanna is generous/impulsive, Beth more cautious. Lay pipe for second fight in Act II. End result is that waiter gets a tip somewhere between big and insane, so neither B nor A is quite satisfied.
Remember: Alanna should mention her sister in Nevada who's a waitress. Beth counters that she waited tables briefly in HS. Alanna will be surprised at this.

You can go back later and actually write the scene out. As you're working on the rest of the book, if lines of dialogue come to you (I tend to write pages and pages of it... in my head, while I'm on the treadmill), go back and jot them down in the same half-assed fashion.
Once you get to the end of the book, then you can go back and flesh out these holes.

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