As I reported to readers of my newsletter last week, I completed the rough draft of my work-in-progress in mid-April. This first draft took just under six months to write—not fast, but also not the slowest first draft I’ve written. Because it’s a contemporary novel, I didn’t have to do much research. It is set in a world I know.
Upon finishing the last chapter, I took a few moments to congratulate myself on that milestone. Then I moved on to the next step—editing!
Actually, there were a few steps to accomplish before launching into an edit. This novel is a sequel to an earlier book I wrote under a pseudonym. I published the first book in this series in 2013. That was a long time ago, and I’ve forgotten many details about that story. So my first step was to re-read that book (something I should have done before the rough draft of my work-in-progress). In this reading, I picked up a lot of my characters’ mannerisms and back stories that I had not remembered. Now I have that information to include as I edit the new story.
I then started reading through my rough draft. It does no good to edit without having a plan of attack, and that’s what I want to accomplish in this read-through. My primary goal is to catch what scenes I missed, where I have inconsistencies in my plot or character motivations, and other errors in story-telling.
Unfortunately, when I am writing something—anything—I cannot leave it alone. That has been true since my lawyering days. When I wrote legal briefs or memoranda, I constantly edited them, usually up until the filing deadline. When I reviewed other attorneys’ work, I rewrote their drafts, sometimes beyond recognition. I told myself I was improving their work. But often I was only tweaking it, not changing the substance. And I probably irritated several of the people I worked with with this habit of reading with pen (or keyboard) in hand.
In fairness, I don’t treat myself any better than I did my coworkers. I do the same thing now with my own drafts. Although my current goal on my work-in-progress is to fix the major story problems, I veer into heavy line editing frequently. That isn’t necessarily wrong, as the line editing will need to be done at some point. But it adds wasted effort to the work, because many of the scenes I am editing will change substantially on my next draft. Some of what I’m re-writing now will survive, but a lot of it won’t.
But this is my process. It has worked for the novels I’ve written so far. So the odds of my changing my practice are remote.
I sense as I’m reading this book I have improved as a writer. I wrote the rough draft of the first book in this series in 2007, and it went through about nine major rewrites (as well as a lot more tweaking) before I published it in 2013. This sequel will not take that many rewrites. It will take at least two more passes, and probably three or four. (Maybe five, depending on when I can make myself stop.) But the plot is mostly cohesive, and it does have a story arc . . . unlike the first draft of that first novel back in 2007. At that time, I didn’t know what a story arc was!
Writers, how do you tell that your work is improving?
I am somewhat amused by your editing process. My husband, David, was a scientific writer and progress was slow, slow and meticulous. I used that to my advantage. Whenever we had a joint project (Christmas letter, for example), I whipped out something of the appropriate length and gave it to him. I knew the result would be perfection and I got off easy.
Writing on a blank page and editing are very different skills. Both are important.
Sometimes I shudder when I read earlier stuff. After I write something and go back now, there are still many improvements, but that’s why they call it rewrites!