How to Edit a Finished First Draft

You can start by re-reading your draft. Preferably out loud. Jot down on the manuscript where it sounds awkward or where you can see where to add more, take something out, or put it somewhere else in the manuscript.

First, don't be afraid to "wreck" it. If you take a second look and like what you see, there's no need to revise that part of it. That doesn't mean you can't change anything, or that whatever you do change will somehow sully the rest of the manuscript.

What I do is take my full draft, stick it on a flash drive, and have it printed at Kinko's so I can go over it with a pencil. That way you can go over it without "losing" anything initially, and it's sometimes easier to do edits if you have a hard copy.

1) Put it away and work on something else for a while. Clear your head and don't think about it.

2) After your mind-cleansing, pull it back out and give it a read-through. Make notes about what you wish to change.

3) If changes are extensive - ie shifting scenes around, cutting, rewriting - I suggest making an outline of what you want the narrative to look like when you're finished.

4) Start making changes. Begin with the large-scale things and work downward to the littler items.

5) Lather, rinse, and repeat as desired.

In terms of structure, make an outline. Yep, I outline when the draft's done, not before. Map your plot.

Ask yourself of every scene: What is the goal(s) of this scene? Did I accomplish that goal? If not, fix it. Does another scene accomplish the same goal, only better? If so, dump the first scene. Or combine them.

RunawayScribe said:

I'm looking for examples/suggestions of how to edit a completed first draft.

My finished MS is a large, looming pile casting shadows of doom. I love it. I think it has potential to be polished into something better. But I'm a bit scrambled and intimidated and I don't know where to start without wrecking what I do have.

How do you go about beginning revisions on a finished first draft?

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Before you do anyting, put it away for at least a week. That way the story will get out of your head, and you will be able to look at the text more objectively.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the immensity of the project. Just take it a little at a time. Toss deleted scraps into a new document if you're uncomfortable throwing away stuff. You might make a sweeping pass to change big things (scenes, characters added/removed, moving big blocks of text around) and then make another pass to edit sentences for rhythm, structure, and flow. Another pass read aloud will catch even more.

If need be, work on only one thing at a time (example):

Pass 1: get the plot in order
Pass 2: add description and dialog
Pass 3: make sure every scene serves a purpose
Pass 4: line edit
Pass 5: perfection! (or as close as you can get)

I think my last book has had at least 20 edits (including a complete genre change and two paper edits by my agent). It may still get one more (on the computer) before going out on submission once she checks the last changes I sent her.

If you're sick and tired of reading the damn thing, and you can write the synopsis from memory, that's probably almost enough edits.

RunawayScribe said:

How do you go about beginning revisions on a finished first draft?

Click to expand...

First, create an offsite backup in as many different file formats as possible.

Read it all the way through at a good pace. Don't make notes on prose unless you really can't help yourself. Make notes on things that aren't clear enough, character motivation, structure, plot.

It is a good idea to create an outline to make sure everything hangs together.

Sometimes I will create both an outline and a plan-for-revisions that's coded to the outline. For example, I'll have an index card that says, "X and Y talk about their feelings" and on the back put, "Make clear why X talks to Y about her feelings even though she hates him."

I start with the first word, then move on to the second. Sorry, but there aren't any great secrets that let you skip ahead to something more fun.

I find it helpful to make a copy, every day, before I begin editing, just in case I screw up and want to go back to what I had before I started that day. This has saved me some headaches recently.

Print it out and edit as you read. Go line by line with a marker. Also, note broad scope changes or ideas. If you outlined before writing the draft, you may have less need of these than otherwise. Reading aloud can be helpful, but I don't find it completely necessary. Sometimes reading aloud can mislead you as to whether it works on the page.

Then, edit it again on your word processor. You might find yourself returning to the original line, or altering it even more significantly. This is also where you might implement larger changes that you have noted in the original read through.

This is what I do, in the form of advice.

Here's great advice on that very thing from Justine Larbelestier:

http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2008/01/02/how-to-rewrite/

I've been revising my novel's first draft too, and I made a post in my blog about the method I'm using, which has been working very well for me so far. Basically, after reading it through and making comments, I made an index car detailing each scene, which I then put into the order they'll go in the second draft. Then I make an outline on the computer, add and delete scenes as needed, and work from there.

Good luck to you, I hope you find a system that works for you.

The best advice I've ever received is to let the draft sit for a while. I'd say the longer the better, but definitely at least a week or two.

As for how I edit, I sit down and edit the whole thing from start to finish. I don't get up until I'm done (except bathroom breaks and food).

Otherwise I forget what came earlier...and I'm outline-impaired.

I'm going to go against the majority of advice here. While I will be leaving my MS for a couple of weeks before I start editing, I'm going to try doing things a little different from there on out.

I'm going to go through sentence or paragraph by sentence or paragraph, and edit it to be better writing. I'm going to do this at least twice, and only then will I think about shifting parts of the story around.

I mean, I had my most detailed outline ever, so I'm already happy with what happens when. So small stuff first for me.

That said, it's just my plan. I've never edited a thing in my life, not even in high school, so I don't know if it'll work out any better than doing big stuff first.

How do you treat your first draft, if you want it to be great the next go round? You treat it like a baby treats a diaper.

My editorial process works much the same as my writing process does...lots of spreadsheets and Diet Coke.

Step 1: First I read through the manuscript from start to finish and write down my in-the-moment crits ("weakest opening ever", "I thought she was from Spain?" "tighten this up" and the like) in the margins.
Step 2: Then I break the manuscript down into chunks (usually by chapter) and determine if I need to keep it, edit it, or completely rewrite. I keep track of this info on a spreadsheet-cum-outline with pretty colors and wacky fonts. For some reason this keeps me focused and goal-oriented.
Step 3: For chapters that are especially problematic, I write a paragraph-by paragraph summary (1. Edna goes to the park. 2. Talks to Edmund about his haircut. etc.) and then see if there's not a way I can reconfigure/cut/rearrange from this quick-n-dirty outline level. If there isn't, it's an indication that I might need to ditch it altogether.
Step 4: Next, I go through chapter by chapter and do a deep edit/rewrite. Once I'm done, I print out the chapter itself and read out loud, then return to the computer draft and edit glaring errors and problems.
Step 5: Finally, I do what I call the "fun pass." This involves going through the book and assessing for fun (fun being anything that's compelling, moves quickly, says as much as possible in as few words as possible, contains nothing I'd want to skim over, has a strong voice). The fun pass is usually combined with a grammar/spell check.
Step 6: After this step, I pass the book off to my betas (and/or editor and agent). Once I get their feedback, I assess, rinse, and repeat.

You may run into a seine (or a sentence or a paragraph) that you just can't make work. You rewrite it and rework it and it's still now quite right. When that happens, consider cutting it out completely. If it's giving you that much trouble it may be because it doesn't belong there.

RunawayScribe said:

I'm looking for examples/suggestions of how to edit a completed first draft.

My finished MS is a large, looming pile casting shadows of doom. I love it. I think it has potential to be polished into something better. But I'm a bit scrambled and intimidated and I don't know where to start without wrecking what I do have.

How do you go about beginning revisions on a finished first draft?

Click to expand...

Tell me about it. I, too, am editing a novel, and also trying to increase the word count.

I cringe when I read my work a second time, after letting it cool, and I see glaring errors. I often wonder, 'How on earth did I not spot that myself?' A couple of betas have also provided useful feedback, but again some of the stuff seems so obvious that I kick myself and think, 'Why didn't I spot that myself?'

One technique I have used during the editing process, which has really helped, is that I imagine I am standing in a room reading my book to a group of strangers.

I have begun my editing at the start and I'm ploughing my way through the to the end. Almost all the scenes will be edited to some extent, a couple of new scenes will be added, and at last one scene is going to be deleted completely. Then I'll be going back to the beginning and doing it all over again - it's like tightening a boot lace from the top down to the bottom.

My self-imposed deadline, originally the end of 2009, just keeps getting further and further away. I suspect my novel will be finished in the summer of 2010.

The rewrite process:

1) You put it away for at least a week
2) You open it again, after said period of time
3) You start to read, and then after a few pages you tear your hair and think "My god, I'm the worst bleeding writer EVER!"
4) You decide you've put too much time into it, so you can't really put it in a shredder before people happen to see it and then learn what a big fake you really are, and see your big secret - that you're the "worst bleeding writer EVER".
5) After two months with the red pencil, you get an email back from the friend who convinced you to send the mess to them, that says "Why is Martha in Chapter five driving to work in a Volvo, when she comes home in a Vauxhall?" You hit the booze, and promise to take up plumbing.
6) After three months, you sit down and think "Hell yeah, this will work!"

My process:

I try to wait at least a couple of weeks before touching the manuscript. This helps make it look different to me so I can spot problems.

I usually take a chunk of it with me to work and read it at lunch. I use a red pen and mark it--red so I can see it. Anything I might miss gets identified in the margins (i.e., insert comma).

I go through it and hit anything that really jumps out at me. It does seem to be different not only from draft to draft, but from manuscript to manuscript.

Since I always run short, I also look for places where I can expand the scene, use a character again, etc.

Harder aspects, like subplots, I leave for the final draft.

I hit the low hanging fruit on the computer first--everything that's easy to fix. I also fix any typos or omitted words if I spot them (I hate proofreading, so I correct this every time I see one!).

Anything that requires more work, I'll do straight on the computer.

My most recent rewrite was accomplished by first writing a two-page synopsis of the book. Must be two pages. Then I looked at everything I didn't deem important enough to put into the synopsis, and decided whether it really needed to be in the story, too. (spoiler: No.)

Cutting 30,000 words out necessitated a rewrite of many scenes and chapters, but it made the rewriting very easy, since I was confident that every change I made was necessary.

RunawayScribe said:

I'm looking for examples/suggestions of how to edit a completed first draft.

My finished MS is a large, looming pile casting shadows of doom. I love it. I think it has potential to be polished into something better. But I'm a bit scrambled and intimidated and I don't know where to start without wrecking what I do have.

How do you go about beginning revisions on a finished first draft?

Click to expand...

Congratulations on finishing that first draft! That's an accomplishment in itself.

I actually teach a course on editing your own fiction, since without the ability to do that, it's virtually impossible to get anywhere. By the time they finish their first drafts, most novelists know the book by heart; the words are so familiar they seem inevitable and carved in stone. That's one reason I don't recommend editing sequentially. What I do with my own novels, and what I teach in the workshop, is doing a series of separate edits, each of which focuses narrowly on some aspect of the book, starting with the big-ticket items---plot, POV, characterization---since there's no point fine-turning scenes that may not make the cut. So for example, I'll do separate readings for each major character, revisiting only those scenes in which the character appears; or I'll look at each subplot as a thing in itself by reading only those scenes that pertain to it. There's a separate edit for dialogue, another for settings, and a scene-by-scene evaluation to root out "empty" scenes and make sure they're all multi-tasking. The last editing pass is for language and style...for a lot of writers, that's the only one they do; it's what they think of as editing.

First drafts, no matter how good, are only approximations. You've captured the story before it could get away, which is good, and you've almost certainly discovered during the process of writing what exactly you want to say with this story, what it's really about. Second (and later) drafts are a chance to bring this conscious realization to bear. It's not at all just a matter of putting a comma in here, taking one out there. Second drafts are where the art comes in.

Barbara