Life After The First Draft

One of the most common questions I see asked in the author community is, “I finished drafting my book! Now what?” 

First of all, take a moment to congratulate yourself. Most people who entertain the idea of writing a book never reach the finish line on the first draft, so well done you! You’re already ahead of the game. The trouble is, there’s a lot more advice about how to write the first draft out there than there is on how to navigate life afterward.

Often, writers think this is the time to start recruiting beta readers, or send the book off to a literary agent or a professional editor. Whoa there, cowpoke. Before you let other people start reading and critiquing your work, you’ll want to get it in as good of shape as you can, on your own. And a book still in the first draft state is far from perfect. This is true of everyone; I guarantee you that when Stephen King finishes a new book, it’s a turd until it gets some polish. 

So, here’s my process on self-editing. That is, working out as many of the kinks as I can before I start getting second opinions on my writing.

Look At The Word Count

The first thing you’ll want to do is check the word count of your book, and make sure it’s within the publishing standards for the book’s intended genre and age category. This is especially important if you plan to query agents in order to traditionally publish. Most agents have a massive slush pile of submissions to vet on a daily basis, and many have a hard word count limit, among other things, that will cause them to reject a manuscript without even reading it, because they know a publisher won’t consider it. You can easily search online for the word count ballpark your book should fall into, and be sure you’re viewing current data – in the last decade, books have been trending shorter and shorter.

If your word count is too high, look at where you can make cuts to get it down to an acceptable length. This may include removing redundant characters, axeing subplots that don’t go anywhere or have little to do with the main plot, removing scenes that don’t drive the story forward, and doing a line-by-line edit to remove excess words and phrases that don’t add anything to the storytelling (commonly called “filler words”.) Making cuts like this can often force you to “kill your darlings”, but if a scene, chapter, or character is just there for fun or because you like them, you may have to make the hard choice and do what’s best for the book.

Conversely, you may find the book is too short. In that case, look for things that didn’t get resolved or may have been glossed over. If a subplot never got satisfactorily closed out, add to it. If a character said they had a goal in the first act and never actually achieved it, add that to the story. Make sure people are reacting to things and settings are described to the reader. There are plenty of ways to flesh out a bare bones manuscript.

Take Another Look At The Big Picture 

Once you’re satisfied your story has an acceptable word count, it’s time to read through the manuscript again (you’ll be doing a lot of this between now and publication, trust me.) Take note of developmental issues, some of which I mentioned in the above point. Does the plot make sense? Are there any glaring plotholes or continuity errors? Is the pacing even? Do the main characters have arcs that either change them or see them accomplish something by the end of the story? Does every chapter move the plot forward in some way, and do subplots ultimately serve the main plot?

You can either make changes as you go, or you may prefer to do a full read-through, make your notes, and then edit as needed. Either way works for different people. Again, doing this may require you to kill some darlings, but keep in mind that readers want a coherent, streamlined experience when they pick up a book. They may not find the same things charming or funny that you do if they don’t keep things moving. If you’re really stumped on how to fix something, or whether it belongs in the book, you can always flag it for later, and leave the final decision up to critique partners and/or beta readers.

Do A Proofread, And Then Do Another One

Now, your brain may be better at multitasking than mine, and you may be able to simultaneously read your draft for typos as well as big-picture issues. But I have to do the proofread for typos in a separate pass. Tools like Grammarly or ProWritingAid can help a lot, but they’re machines more geared for non-fiction writing and can’t catch everything spelling and grammar related. And in some cases, they may point out “errors” that aren’t there, such as an uneducated character pronouncing a word wrong on purpose, or suggest nonsensical changes. I once had Grammarly tell me to change “he said in a booming voice” to “he said, boomingly.” Yeah.

Also, AI is currently terrible at editing fiction for flow and clarity, often stripping the nuance or author’s voice out of the prose because it’s trying to turn your story into a business email. Besides, the only way you’ll improve as a writer is to read your work, and a line-by-line edit will help you identify what words or phrases you use constantly, what grammatical mistakes you make frequently, and how you tend to structure your sentences, so you can vary things. 

If nothing else, do a proofread for the sake of your crit partners and beta readers. They’re going to have a harder time enjoying your book if it’s riddled with typos, and you’re going to have more dropouts as well as less useful feedback from the people who do stick around.

I personally love the self-editing phase, because I’ve made peace with the knowledge that the first draft of any book I write will be a pile of sand, and it’s a great feeling to slowly shape that sand into a sandcastle.