From Draft 1 to Draft 2 

Last week, I shared a little of how I get my first draft of a novel down. To summarize that post, I simply give myself a small writing goal: write ten chapters with at least five Word pages per chapter. That goal does what I expect of my Draft 1; it gets the skeleton of the story down. Draft 1’s purpose is simply for me to get my ideas down. It does not have to be any good. As long as I get the main scenes and characters in, I am in a good position. However, the next part can be quite frightening. I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with the next part. I know that deep down inside, I love the shaping and molding of Draft 1 into Draft 2, but there is so much to it, that I don’t always find myself loving the process. I think it would be unfair and unrealistic for me to say that I completely love the next part.

I usually find that the next part seems just as painful as the first, and perhaps that is why I have conflicting emotions with it. When I look at Draft 1, it overwhelms me and just looks like a lot of words. For a moment, I just sit there, with a lot of word on a page. Now, I actually have something written, a story! Or at least, fragments of a story. I do not usually know what it is I have, but I have learned over the past couple of years that this is the step in my writing process that eventually allows me to make something out of my writing. Draft 2 usually scares me because so many insecurities come out of it. I always find myself doubting my abilities and my writing skills.

My shaping of Draft 1 into Draft 2 feels a lot like walking toward into the distance toward that light in the picture. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. Likewise, I don’t know while lay beyond in the fog. I have mentioned before that when I write, I kind of just let it flow and see where the characters take me. It is in this part of my editing that I have learned to split this monster up. The best way I have learned to do my editing is to first print out my entire Draft 1. I do not edit directly on my computer, not for this draft at least. This is one of the drafts that I will mark up, tear up, burn pages (if needed), write in more scenes, and have a little amount of breakdowns as possible. Needless to say, I don’t think anyone but me would be able to decipher my mess. That would be like trying to look into my brain, and I do not advise trying to do that.

Before beginning my editing, I also split up my novel on my computer. I create a new folder on computer, labeling it Draft 2, and then individually save each chapter in to that folder. The reason I do this is to facilitate my editing of the chapters.  That gives me a lot more to focus in on. Instead of looking at a stack of about one hundred pages, I now have five to ten Word pages to work with. I do this because it helps me slice the story into manageable pieces. It gives me something that I can actually work with. From there, the editing begins! I usually do a first read through the draft to see what I was trying to do. After reading it once through, I then start marking up awkward phrases, adding details, and if needed adding scenes.

With my first five to ten pages, I go through my process, trying to make some sense of my first chapter. My new goal is to get each page up to at least ten Word pages per chapter. That will double the amount of pages that I will have to work with in the end, and should give me a lot more to work with. However, that is the main reason this process usually takes so long. There is so much adding and moving around that it frustrates me at times. Usually after finalizing my hand editing, I jump right into the Word document and make the changes into the appropriate Word document in the Draft 2 folder. I follow this gruesome process for the entire Draft 2 until I edit the entire novel.

This is the madness that begins to shape my first draft of a novel. I tend to follow the same process in Draft 3 if needed and usually do not do the same for Draft 4. Once I get to Draft 4, I usually just do the editing directly on my computer. Once I get a novel to Draft 4, the story begins to look decent. In a jiff, that is my editing process. Now, that is how I edit my own novels. It may not be the best, and I think i create more work for myself, but currently that is the process that helps me get my thoughts together. I’m too scatter-brained and have to follow a certain process. This is my process. I would love to hear from other writers on how they manage to get their stories together. Let me know your process! I’m interested to hear for you guys!

Best Regards,

H. J.