Tag Archives: rewriting

Is there life after finishing a first draft?

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My title poses an interesting question. Is there life after a first draft? You may well wonder since I’ve gone dark on social media since I announced I had finished mine. Truth be told, I needed a break from talking about my work.

I have not been idle. For an indie author, the work never stops. While that first draft was simmering, I reread the other three books in the series. This was useful as I go into rewrites on the fourth book. I now have the entire story line in my head. As a matter of course, I picked up typos and a few continuity errors. So, I upgraded all the files. I’ve been meaning to do such an update for a while because I’ve learned how to do the table of contents feature in a way that is more compatible for Kindle readers.

A great upside to indie publishing and doing my own ebook formatting is that I can revise and repost my interior book files whenever necessary. The need to do such revising comes up more often that I realized it would. When the fourth book is published, I will have redo the interior file for the third with a sneak peek at chapter one of the fourth.

I’ve now moved through my first rewrite on No Compass to Right. I’ve trimmed down the word count, cleaned up problematic scenes, checked over time frames and rewritten a key event that, according to one of my consultants, was more complicated than necessary. I’ve done multiple searches for incidents of unclear, weak writing.

Line-by-line editing has begun on the early chapters and rewrites will continue apace of editing. This process may seem clunky but it works for me. I’m keeping ahead of my editor (what a laugh!) by reading the entire work aloud and making changes as I go. Much is discovered while reading a piece of one’s writing aloud!

When I can’t face any of the above tasks, I switch gears to work on acknowledgments, dedication and the dreaded book blurb for the latest novel. Nothing tests an author’s mettle like writing a book blurb. There is that moment, looking at a blank page, knowing I must come up with 250 words that will excite, entice and lure the reader into my story, when I realize that my book must be about nothing since my mind is a total blank.

I’m also working on ideas, conceptual sketches and assembling photos for the cover of this new work.

On the marketing front, I’ve landed another BookBub slot for Disappearing in Plain Sight in May. It was March 2016 that I was featured with the first book of the Crater Lake Series. I am eager to share how a second time on the same book works out.

So, that’s where I’m at. Where in the writing process do you find yourself?

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Moving from First Draft to Second and Subsequent Drafts

Joy of Cooking - google image

 

Oh the joy of rewrites – there should be a book by that title that could be stored right up on the shelf beside The Joy of Cooking. Most writers probably don’t see the process through that happy, happy lens, so I’m betting the book would get our attention.

 

 

A resting period is an important consideration. The moments after the raucous cheering that came about when one typed the words THE END is not the time to start a second draft. Through the first draft process it has been all about weaving a believable story together, getting that story from the opening pages through the ups and downs and pushing the whole kit-and-caboodle to the finish line. Rewrites and second drafts are a different beast. You have to prepare yourself for that.

Second and subsequent drafts generally entail a good deal of picking apart. It’s definitely a deconstructive process. The main consideration for me is whether the work makes sense. I read through my work asking questions. Have I got my facts straight? Could this really happen the way I’m saying it could? Is this behaviour, dialogue, thought pattern consistent with the character I created?

Questions related to structure emerge. Should this piece go here? Should this chapter end there? I move, eventually, to looking at individual paragraphs and even sentences. Is there a deeper meaning to the way I have constructed this novel? Can I strengthen that meaning by changing things around?

Scissors - google imageThen, of course, there is the cutting. I’m working on my fourth novel, so I’ve made my peace with the cutting process. I tend to over explain and since that is something that drives me crazy as a reader, I’m fairly brutal seeking out those instances in my own writing. Weeding out the unnecessary repetitions is part of this stage. Stephen King has his formula and I think it serves as a good rule of thumb: first draft – 10% = second draft. The wordier among us may have to think 15%.

On Chasing Down the Night, by the time I got to those beauty words – THE END – I’d already had two rounds of feedback from my go-to beta reader that led to significant cuts.

Here is a sample of the kind of input that is so important to me at this stage of writing:

I am amazed how you are able to weave the threads of the story together so tightly that connections are made, characters are developed and plot is advanced. For me, it is ironic that the ability you have for making every detail essential to the story, also gives rise to the need for you to decide what is most important.

After this feedback, two storylines changed quite radically, there were some significant structural reworking and a character hit the cutting-room floor eliminating almost fifty pages of the work-in-progress.

In second and subsequent drafts, I read my work for themes. Believe it or not, I don’t always see these connections and links when I’m writing. All that is golden is not planned, my friends.

I received this feedback partway through the first draft writing:

The underlying theme of running is being developed in a natural way through the activities of various characters, dream sequences, races and escapes. The end of the novel promises to relate that theme to the title of the novel.

I was taken totally by surprise. Any effort to draw out this particular theme was completely sub-conscious on my part. When I re-read and have those ah-ha theme moments (or have them pointed out to me), I start looking for ways to strengthen those parts of the novel.

Fog on the Lake - Guenette photo

So – that is me moving myself into a second and subsequent draft mind-set. Since I need to do this, I thought I might multi-task by sharing the process with my readers. How do you shift yourself from a first draft writing mode to rewrites? Does anything I do ring true with your own process? Have you got any special gems to share on this topic?

The Editing Process

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In today’s post, I’ve decided to share a couple of examples of the editing process for Disappearing in Plain Sight. In the first paragraph below, an editor has very kindly and with great tact pointed out some needed changes. Think about whether you would have noticed the need to make the type of changes she suggested.

On her first evening at the A-Frame, Lisa-Marie grabbed a novel from the coffee-table (remove hyphen) and flopped onto the sofa. She began to read, which (faulty pronoun reference: to which word in the main clause does this “which” refer?) wasn’t so bad (perhaps: and she didn’t mind spending her time that way) since she loved to read (repetitious: books?), but she usually got to pick reading over other options. Here there were no other options – no TV, no internet, and no phone. It was like being captive on an episode of Survivor. The dogs were curled in a ball (faulty image: sleeping? lying?) beside the sofa and Lisa-Marie stretched out a foot every now and then to rub each of their bellies in turn. The inside of the cabin was eerily quiet – in fact the whole area around the cabin was dead quiet and dark. Lisa-Marie had never seen it so dark outside anywhere (redundant: omit) in her life (misplaced phrase: never in her life).

Here is how that paragraph now reads in the completed manuscript.

On her first evening at the A-Frame, Lisa-Marie grabbed a novel from the coffee table and flopped onto the sofa. She didn’t mind spending her time with a good book but she usually got to pick reading over other options. Here there were no other options – no TV, no internet and no phone. It was like being captive on an episode of Survivor. The dogs were lounging comfortably beside the sofa and Lisa-Marie stretched out a foot every now and then to rub each of their bellies in turn. The inside of the cabin was eerily quiet – in fact the whole area around the cabin was dead quiet and dark. Never in her life had Lisa-Marie seen it so dark outside.

Editing is hard work, as anyone who has done some knows.  I really struggled with the final line, but in the end I made the suggested change. In some ways I still think – Lisa-Marie had never seen it so dark outside anywhere in her life – sounds better.

The above example paragraph didn’t appear in earlier drafts. The next one did. Here is how this paragraph read in the March 2012 draft:

Izzy’s dark, twisting curls were piled high on her head and tumbled down over one bare shoulder. A number of small, white roses wove through her hair and a large pair of silver hoop-earrings danced around her face. She wore a softly feminine, off-the-shoulder, white, cotton dress, with a tight-fitting bodice of embroidered shirring attached to a flouncy skirt that fell well above the knee. Her hair and dress combined with her bare feet made her look like a dark, garden Goddess. Though Lisa-Marie sat right beside Justin and he turned to smile at her often, seeming to include her in everything he said, his eyes were on Izzy so often a painful lump lodged in Lisa-Marie’s throat.

Below is the same paragraph, streamlined slightly, as it went to the editor. Lengthy descriptions of what my characters were wearing got weeded out as I rewrote and rewrote. Still work to do, though.

Izzy’s dark, twisting curls were piled high on her head and tumbled down over one bare shoulder. (faulty structure: either: curls were piled high (passive) on her head and they tumbled down (active) or: Although Izzy’s dark, twisting curls were piled high on her head, some of them tumbled…)A large pair of silver hoop-earrings danced around her face. She wore an off-the-shoulder, white dress. Though Lisa-Marie sat right beside Justin and he turned to smile at her often, seeming to include her in everything he said, she saw that his eyes were on Izzy so often it made a painful lump lodge in her throat. (awkward distance between “though” and “she saw”/faulty construction: try two or three sentences here)

And finally, the finished product:

Izzy’s dark, twisting curls were piled high on her head and they tumbled down around her face. A large pair of silver hoop-earrings danced and sparkled whenever she turned. She wore an off-the-shoulder, white dress. Lisa-Marie sat right beside Justin and he often turned to smile at her, seeming to include her in everything he said. Still, she saw that his eyes were at least as often on Izzy. A painful lump lodged in Lisa-Marie’s throat.

What I have learned of editing is that good writing is stripped down to the basics. I needed a multitude of detail to write the story because it helped me know the characters inside and out. As it turned out, the reader didn’t need to experience the characters in the same way that I did. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these examples or your own editing process – the struggles and the things you’ve learned.