March Towards the Second Draft: The Editing Process

I've written before about how important the editing process is to writing a successful novel, and thought I should expand a little on my own writing and editing process, and how it works.

As I mentioned before, in my experience, the first draft of a book or novel is usually a very rough draft, intended to get the skeleton in place for future revisions. The idea is to get all of the major events and elements of the story down on paper (or stored in electrons) for subsequent revisions and polishing. In my instance, most of the first draft is typed directly onto the computer. I will often have a series of notes or a list of key elements I want to add, which I will update along the way - but the original, first draft is usually typed directly on the keyboard.

For me, the second draft is about filling in any missing scenes or elements, and getting the scene order right. This is, like the first draft, a somewhat lengthy process - because there's usually so much to add. The first draft of my second novel, for example, was around 74,000 words in length, or slightly longer than the final copy of my first novel. I am expecting the final product to be closer to 90,000 words in length - or twenty percent longer. Most of those additions will take shape while I'm crafting the second draft.

The third, fourth, and subsequent drafts, in contrast, are all about refining the language: correcting any errors and ensuring that the words flow naturally from the page. Also unlike the first draft, all subsequent drafts are usually revised from a printed copy. For whatever reason, it's always been more natural for me to print out the manuscript, and revise it with paper and pen, than to attempt to make those revisions directly onto the computer. Again, that's been my experience as a writer.