First Novel: Beyond the First Draft

I didn't even know about drafts when I wrote my first novel.

It's safely trunked.

My fourth was the first to ever get drafts--and my third's the one that's getting published.

So, yep--it's a first draft.

I've edited mine 3 times now, I think it's almost ready.

My first novel is currently trunked. I wrote it when I was sixteen, which was like a decade ago, and I would say I worked on it on and off for a couple of years after I finished it. At this point I'm experienced enough to know it still needs improvement, and I know what I need to do, but it would take some major time and research. However I know it would be hard to sell just because of the way it's written and the subject matter, so I'm focusing on other projects now. If I get something else sold and it does well, I'll pull this one out and rework it.

I've gone over four books about ten times each. That's because I'm so damn myopic and have to tackle one element at a time. I'm currently on my 11th pass on a book I finished 1 1/2 years ago that is loaded with passive.

Tri

Storyteller5 said:

How much work did you do on your first novel after the first draft?

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I am fortunate in that my wife is a college graduate and very good at editing. She used to teach writing skills to NCOs in the Air Force. So, this is my process with revision:

• After the rough draft is finished, I revise a chapter at a time.
• I give the chapter to my wife, Michelle. She red-inks it.
• I get it back and accept or reject the edits and make the updates.
• At that time, I go through the chapter again, and make any additional changes.
• When all chapters are done in that way, I print out a complete manuscript for me, and one for my wife. She reads it like a novel, not like a revisionist or editor, but she will red-ink typos, etc.
• I do the same thing.
• Then I take each page from her copy and from mine and make those updates.
• Then it's ready to market to agents or publishers.

I will finish my first novel around Sept 15. That will be almost exactly nine months from the time I wrote the first word of the rough draft. It'll be about 83,000 words, 400 manuscript pages.

I figure we'll be millionaires by the time we're 50--when being a millionaire really matters.

Edward

I never label my "drafts". Writing a novel is a fluid process, all my writings are "drafts" until they get published.

I start editing from day 1 and don't stop until they tell me I can no longer edit.

I still edit my earlier books in my mind whenever I read them.

I'd never though about drafts until coming to this site...so about a week ago. Usually I just write the book, read it over to edit, and then start on another. My first one has been trunked, though, because I wrote it from when I was 13-16. While I think the story's good, you can definitely tell that I was getting older and better at writing by the end. One day I'll probably pull it out and fix it up again, since I love the plot, but for now it's literally in a trunk.

Storyteller5 said:

How much work did you do on your first novel after the first draft?

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Two drafts before I sent out my queries. When the initial reaction wasn't that good, I revised the query 12 times. Then it started to get bites, but after a few fulls got rejected, I did a final draft on the darn thing, cut out almost 15,000 words and resubmitted it.

If it wasn't a trunk novel, were you successful with it?

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I never thought it was a trunk novel. I knew it was my first completed novel and I was still learning my craft, but I strongly believed in it and was determined to get it commercially published. You can now buy it in the stores.

I don't do "Draft One," "Draft Two," etc. I rework what needs reworking, which means some sections get rewritten five or six times and others may only be tweaked slightly. So it's hard to know exactly how much rewriting goes into it, but it definitely feels like a lot.

ClaudiaGray said:

I don't do "Draft One," "Draft Two," etc. I rework what needs reworking, which means some sections get rewritten five or six times and others may only be tweaked slightly. So it's hard to know exactly how much rewriting goes into it, but it definitely feels like a lot.

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Ditto. The only time I consider it another "draft" is if I make a major change to the story itself (removing entire characters, altering the order of events, that sort of thing).

Storyteller5 said:

How much work did you do on your first novel after the first draft?

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Well, I finished the first draft several years ago. I've spent months off and on editing, reworking, tweaking and tackling parts (especially the first chapter).

If it was a trunk novel, did you know it and still do more work beyond the first draft? At one point, did you know it was a trunk novel?

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Well, it's trunked because I realized that I needed to spend my time on new projects, instead of endlessly reworking the same project (thank you, AW!). I still think the story is good, and may bring it out of the dungeon again one day.

Speaking generally here ...

After I've completed the story and all the scenes are in place and the structure is locked down and everything 'works',
I'm done with the rough draft.

Polishing that rough draft --
which means getting every word perfect and tightening up, generally, and tossing out stuff that's not needed --
will change only about 5% of the words.

This final 5% takes half the work.

Yes. I have several completed manuscrits tossed away under the bed.
Mostly they had structural problems, not the sort of stuff that could be fixed with polishing.
I became aware of the structural problems when I was still messing with the rough draft, before I started polishing.
No. I never submitted any of them for publication.


Now the very first novel I wrote, I didn't know any better, so I just wrote it out and sent it off without any particular polishing and it got published.
It's harder to write now.

I wrote my first novel--the only one so far--in just three months. I was so excited I submitted it right away, got rejected and joined a writing group. Then I submitted version 3c to a publisher, took 16 weeks to get rejected. THen I had to take time away from it to do some work. Now, I've just landed an agent with version 7d. I change version numbers if I try a different opening, or make a big change (like a character's age) that needs to ripple through the whole work. The letters are for each read through, where I fix errors, smooth the language, adjust dialogue tags.

ClaudiaGray said:

I don't do "Draft One," "Draft Two," etc. I rework what needs reworking, which means some sections get rewritten five or six times and others may only be tweaked slightly. So it's hard to know exactly how much rewriting goes into it, but it definitely feels like a lot.

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I'm the opposite. I do Draft One, Draft Two, through Draft Eight. Each one is a little different. One at 150% on the screen, one at 75%, one hard copy, one read out loud, etc. Even after Draft Eight, I still find things here and there, which is quite annoying.

Storyteller5 said:

How much work did you do on your first novel after the first draft?

If it was a trunk novel, did you know it and still do more work beyond the first draft? At one point, did you know it was a trunk novel?

If it wasn't a trunk novel, were you successful with it?

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I thought my first draft was a finished product, but was saved by life events from sending it out. While I moved, dealt with family business, etc., it waited, and I learned a few things. When I re-read it, I knew: if I hadn't liked the premise, the writing itself would have made it a trunk novel.

Draft two took about a year because I was hard on myself, expecting perfection. It was way too long. But I still liked the idea.

Draft three is mostly cutting, and some smoothing out. They say the third time's a charm and I hope they're right. I still love the story, which is a good thing or I don't think I could have stayed with it this long. It has been a wonderful learning experience. I don't think successive novels will take me this much time, thanks to the efforts I've put in here.

And I always edit out loud.

First

Storyteller5 said:

How much work did you do on your first novel after the first draft?

If it was a trunk novel, did you know it and still do more work beyond the first draft? At one point, did you know it was a trunk novel?

If it wasn't a trunk novel, were you successful with it?

Click to expand...

I didn't know about drafts when I wrote my first novel, either, and I had less than a month to write it, so I couldn't have written a second draft, even if I had known. The first draft went to an agent who sold it.

I wrote my first novel when I was 10, my second when I was 11, my third when I was 12... well, you get the idea. I understood that a concept called "editing" existed, but it seemed like a daunting thing to start. At that age, I just enjoyed the process of storytelling and creating characters, and so for many years I'd write one draft, then move on to a new story, and then repeat the process. I'm 27 now and I have a LOT of first drafts scattered about. Some are still in my parents' house.

With the novel I wrote in 2005, I started doing some minor editing -- tweaking, really. I was scared to scrap whole scenes and rewrite them. Before I got over that fear, I realized the concept wouldn't be saleable as a first novel, and I had another idea, one that had been gnawing at me for some time, that I wanted to work on much more.

So I began my current novel. I wrote the first draft really quickly, recognizing that it was little more than a way to get my ideas down on paper in a mildly organized fashion. After I finished that draft, I tried to "edit" within the same Word file, but I realized I was just spinning my wheels, taking out unnecessary words but not working on the plot or rewriting scenes that were awkward. I started over in a new file -- draft 2.

I'm putting this novel together in layers: draft 1 was a skeleton of the plot; draft 2 is a more organized version of the plot, with better hints of the ending in the beginning and better use of certain plot threads from one chapter to another; draft 3 will, I think, be mostly about voice and word use. I'm not sure yet if there will be a draft 4, but I won't be afraid to rewrite this thing again if it comes to that.