Writing the Second Draft
When you stop telling yourself the story and start writing for your readers
Towards the end of last year, I wrote a blog about writing a first draft. The book I’m writing now isn’t the first novel I’ve written, so while I’m learning a lot as I go along, I’m also learning how my writing process has changed from one book to another.
Since that blog, I’ve completed the second draft and am getting ready to start the third, so I thought it was time to check in with the process again and give you my thoughts on writing a second draft.
What’s the difference between a first and second draft?
The first draft was a story written just for me. My manuscript was rough around the edges, but the whole story was there, not just the bare bones that made up the zero draft. To compare it to a human body, I had added all the skin, muscle and connective tissues to create something recognisably humanoid, but it definitely couldn’t be described as a ‘fine specimen’. After thoroughly reviewing my body of work (sorry, couldn’t resist!), I had a fully marked-up first draft and a very good idea of what I wanted to change.
Writing a second draft is all about getting the structure of the book right.
In the second draft, I wrote analytically with one eye on the detail and the other on the end goal. While I had a laundry list of prospective changes, the second draft focussed on making changes that affected the structure of the book. Think: correcting the order of events, filling plot holes, adding or removing characters, changing the physical and temporal setting, and so on. Writing a second draft takes all the great stuff you wrote in the first draft and amends them with purpose so that each of the fundamental parts of the story works well.
My Second Draft
Writing the second draft took 3 months. (As a reminder, plotting this book took 2 months and writing the first draft took 3 months, so I’m now 8 months in.) While it was only about 120 hours of actual editing (or roughly 1 hour of editing per 1000 words), there was a lot of additional time required to think about and talk through the changes I wanted to make, so that I could assess the impact of each change and ensure I wasn’t going to accidentally write myself into a corner.
I also needed more time to conduct further research. Research is one of those tricksy things where you need to do some before you start writing, but you never really know what you don’t know until you have a solid first draft.
As expected, I made some major changes in my second draft, including adding six new flashback scenes, rewriting several scenes from different perspectives, moving scenes and chapters around, merging scenes and chapters, and removing some scenes and chapters entirely. I made much more of some characters and added a new character who, I hope, will persist through the series.
In doing all of this I also identified a whole new list of changes that I want to make in the next draft.
Second Draft Feedback
I had a lot of feedback at the end of my first draft. My husband is my alpha reader, but both my main beta reader and my writing mentor read the whole thing. The feedback here was high level: whether the concept was sound, whether the plot points worked and whether the characters were engaging.
Feedback on the second draft has been a little different. While the readers have been the same, they haven’t all read the whole thing. Instead, they have focussed on new scenes and major changes, so that I can see whether those changes and additions have worked and/or created other issues I need to fix. The feedback has also been more detailed: how the changes will impact the rest of the plot, how new additions have affected the pace, and whether characters need more emotional depth.
For those of you wondering why I didn’t get new readers for a new draft: I wanted consistency in feedback from readers who already understood my vision for the book, and were able to compare one draft with another. The time will absolutely come for fresh eyes, but maybe not for another draft or two!
Preparing for the Third Draft
As with moving from first to second draft, I have another fix list to move from second to third. However, I’m doing a few other things too before I get writing again…
I’m updating my clue tracker (but this time I’m using digital diagrams rather than my wall) so that I know when clues appear, when red herrings are resolved and when everything needs to be foreshadowed.
I’m also updating my character profiles. For this book I have 20 characters in total, so there’s a lot of updating to do. Since I’d also like this book to be the first in the series, I’m making sure this feeds into my series bible: the document that will track character arcs and events across each of the books I’d like to write. This is a new thing for me since the last book was a standalone, but something that is hugely valuable, or so I’ve heard from many published crime series authors!
Once all this has been done, I’ll have a much better idea of why some of the characters act as they do, and will be able to add emotional depth to other characters when I know more about their backstory. It’s the sort of world building I really love doing: getting to have a good root around in my character’s heads! Then, I’ll also be ready to write the third draft.
How many more drafts will I need?
At this stage (and perhaps at every stage) this is a bit like asking ‘how long is a piece of string?’, but I do have a gut feel about it. As an absolute minimum, I think I’ll need another three drafts:
Third Draft for medium-sized edits concerning plot, characterisation, POV and pace. I’d like to reduce the word count to 98k in this draft too, so the whole thing should take two to three months.
Fourth Draft for small-sized edits concerning foreshadowing, dialogue, sensory descriptions and readability. I’d like to further reduce the word count to around 92k in this draft, which should take four to six weeks.
Fifth Draft is for polishing, including line editing, copy editing and proofreading. The word count will not be significantly altered, and this part of the process should only take two to four weeks.
Only after completing all of these drafts will I feel like I have a well-written, correctly formatted and polished manuscript. And, if I’m right about the timings, the book will have taken one year (of actual effort) to get from rough idea to something I’m happy to share with agents.
So what now?
It’s mid May and I’ll be starting on my third draft next week. I’d like to get this done by mid July and, with any luck, I’ll be doing most of the editing in the garden. It’ll be a welcome change to be typing while listening to birdsong and lawnmowers, rather than the relentless hammering of raindrops on windowsills.
That’s all for today. See you next time!