Sentence Fragments and Run-on sentences

[Shwenn]

Re: the capitalization thing, I want to share some advice that helped me immeasurably.

Do not worry at all about that sort of thing until at least your fourth draft. My creative writing professor at LSU told me that. I started doing it and I immediately liked my writing better.

I've taken it much further than that, even.

First Draft, I don't give a thought to grammar or sentence structure or any of that. I don't even correct the words my spell check has underlined in red.

First Draft is all about creation.
Second Draft gets some attention to grammar.
Third Draft gets a technique once over.
Fourth Draft gets the niggling, petty BS taken care of.
All subsequent drafts are more flagellantism than anything else.

I have a first chapter posted here called The Countess. It's a second draft. I have no idea if this is true but I'd be willing to bet it's 'countess' about half the time and 'Countess' the other half.

[Clevernick]

Re: the capitalization thing, I want to share some advice that helped me immeasurably.

Do not worry at all about that sort of thing until at least your fourth draft. My creative writing professor at LSU told me that. I started doing it and I immediately liked my writing better.

Good system! Totally in agreement here.

I took a writer's workshop once from someone who later became a moderately successful author. He passed on a set of tips that take your good advice in a direction you may like.

He said, as I recall, that all creativity is a result of two modes, which you could call "accelerator" and "brakes" mode. Typical writing, for example, goes in four phases:

1. Brainstorm (accelerator, don't edit)
2. Cull (brakes, remove ideas that didn't work)
3. Write (accelerator, don't worry about errors)
4. Edit (brakes, worry about nothing but errors)

steps 3 and 4 (and indeed all steps) can be repeated until done.

Writers who are paralyzed or stuck in low-productivity are usually trying to apply accelerators and brakes AT THE SAME TIME, when the whole point of the phases is to separate them. As you can imagine, simultaneous accelerator and brakes works no better in writing than it does in your car.

I have always found this advice helpful.