The First Draft

Yes.

Writing in this genre poses special difficulties. IMO, this is what the 2nd draft is for: get those plot holes plugged and all the other tidying up.

I outline to try (notice the word used there... try) to stop those plot holes, but they still happen. jude's right, this genre is difficult for anyone to write because you have to keep up with so much stuff. Hence my preference for outlining.

I would be shocked, shocked I tells ya, if someone could produce a first draft in this genre with no plot holes. I reread and edit mine a LOT as I go along, at the halfway point I go through it all with a fine tooth comb (WTF is one of those anyway?!).
Even so, I come out at the end with numerous holes that need plugging. SO don't worry - write on and celebrate finishing draft one!

Goth,

You've done the hard part. Now shove it in a corner for a couple weeks. Then read it, fixing plot holes, character inconsistencies, et cetera. You won't find them all on the first pass. If you haven't done it already, create an outline, with particular attention to timing of events. That's the raw material for your synopsis.

Maybe you find something that takes you in a new direction. That might take a couple more drafts to get right. Now into polishing, looking for natural chapter breaks, getting the tenses right in flashbacks....

Final spelling and grammar check comes next. Then you're ready for Microsoft Anna or some other program or even a real person read it to you. The whole thing. That counts as a draft too, because you're be cleaning up dialog, redundancies, and sentence structure as you go.

Then write the synopsis. You'll need long and short ones. Then, finally, the dreaded QUERY letter.

Then sit back, take a deep breath, close your eyes and post your first chapter in Share Your Work.

Repeat as necessary.

If you're writing a police procedural, you should get a cop to read it after you clean up the first draft. Don't get too depressed when he tells you your main plot point won't work. Follow his advice. You don't have to write a step-by-step procedural manual, but you do have to follow the rules of evidence and investigative techniques.

I've seen writers tell stories of cops punishing perpetrators or suspects. That is beyond their purview. cops investigate and capture. It's up to the courts to convict and punish.

Then there's the old, "Don't leave town." Cops have no authority to force someone to remain in town, unless they have been arrested and bailed, or they are on parole. Again, that is under court orders.

I see hundreds of errors like this. Some slip through unnoticed, many do not.

Minor plot-holes (like how can she be in two places at once, or how she did she learn to kill with a garlic-press) are small potatoes, but sometimes a plot-hole highlights a motive issue (e.g. why is she killing at all) and those are serious, because it means we don't have a story in the first place. For me, the end of first draft is when I know the story works. Second draft is when I patch plot-holes, and ensure that the scenes and dialogue work.

I don't believe that it's worth sharing first-draft manuscript with good readers unless the story itself is only a few thousand words long. In first draft I'd normally want attention on characters, plot and scene-structure, rather than dialogue, expression and continuity errors.

My suggestion: if you're worried, share character backgrounds and a scene-level outline -- they'll convey enough to know whether your plot is solid and you have the right scenes. Then you can get to puttying and polishing in your second draft.

Putting it aside can help too, but I think that getting a birds-eye view of plot helps more. Hope it does.

I wasn't writing a mystery, but on about my fifth edit I discovered a HUGE plot hole that I had just not clicked to before. I think it happens to everyone, and it's good that you're recognizing them. That's what the rewrites are for, like everyone else said. Mystery is particularly hard. The great thing about writing, though, is that it doesn't have to be right on the first try.

It's perfectly normal, but writer dependent. I know a fair number of mystery writers who get everyting right on the first draft, and a bunch who don't close all the holes until the second or third draft.

A first draft is always rubbish. Don't know who originally said that, but it's worth remembering. It's also worth remembering, "Fix it in the rewrite". In fact, it's worth posting that on a sticky on your PC, so you see it often.

Not too many people manage to write flawless first drafts. You are not alone.

When you get to the end of Draft 1, spend some time celebrating. It's quite an achievement. Then when you're reading to get going again, spend some time working out what you need to do to fix the plot holes, before you start on Draft 2.

Shara