The Second Draft
Ah, it’s finally happened; you have written your first draft.
If you follow the Stephen King method, you can finally open the door of your writing room and reintroduce yourself to your family. Order a pizza, open a bottle of wine, bake a chocolate cake… Do whatever it is you do to celebrate a good occasion.
The next day, when you’re getting past the hangover and the sour stomach from too much wine, pizza, and chocolate cake, you once again enter your writing room/space.
There it is. Your manuscript. Draft numero uno. Ugly/beautiful thing.
You’re now faced with the question many writers are faced with: How long do I wait before I write the second draft?
Fantasy author Karen Miller surprised me when she said she didn’t wait between drafts. When she finished her first draft, she went right back to the beginning and started working on the second draft.
In On Writing, Stephen King recommends at least six weeks of rest time between the first draft and the second.
I find myself caught in the middle. I see the point of doing it right away. The characters are still fresh in your mind with voices stronger than ever, you know more or less for sure what your ending is going to be, and you’re more familiar with the steps of the story than you were in the beginning.
But then again, the break between drafts lets your mind have a break so you can come back to things with ‘fresh eyes’.
Call me traditional, but I highly recommend the break somewhere along the line. Whether it’s between draft one and two or two and three, there is no self-editing tool like taking a break and coming back to it with the mind of an editor instead of a writer.
Do you take a break between drafts? If yes, how long? Why? If no, why not?
February 20th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I rolled from one right into the next. There was no clear ‘ah, done’ moment with the first draft. I knew as I worked on the first pass that there would be a second. It took the pressure off. The second draft started as a list of the changes I needed to make and holes to fill because the story evolved. The clay is on the wheel, now I’ve got to throw it into shape.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Pete - Thanks for stopping by, and nicely said. I waver on this a bit and am going to try continuing right on to the second draft after I finish the first draft of what I’m working on.
About how many drafts do you do? Or does it vary?
February 21st, 2008 at 9:29 am
JM,
I’m really hoping completing the second draft will provide that ‘done’ feeling. I wish I could remember…it might be Michael A. Stackpole from his Secrets podcast…that said the number of revisions depend on how much you edit or revise for each round. Keep revising until you reach a point that the you’re revising less than 10% of the whole manuscript. When you get to that point the remainder won’t matter (not his words, my interpretation) because the other 90% will be so tight the little problems won’t be any big whoop.
Of course, Mr. Stackpole is probably at a point in his career that he wouldn’t have a day job. Me? I’ve got to work on revisions after the wife and kids are down for the night.
Speaking of kids - I hear the holler of the children now…
February 21st, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I think I have heard of that podcast… Hm.
I don’t have kids (yet) but creative time is certainly not abundant. My first edit is always the biggest. In On Writing, Stephen King says that you should be able to cut 10% of your word count. I reckon either King’s or Stackpole’s suggestion would get a manuscript to the tightness that it needs to be.
I just have to wonder if Stackpole’s 10% ever ended up being a scene he couldn’t ever get quite right and ended up thinking maybe ‘it’s good enough’.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 am
Stephen King…maybe that’s where I got it. The On Writing book is lost somewhere on the shelves behind me.
Seems to me editor Pat Walsh had a similar bit of advice in his 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might.
Either way, I still have a long way to go before I close in on 10%.
Cheers.
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Ah, Walsh’s book is on my wish list.
I’m trying not to think about the 10% until I get my first draft done, but I believe I will have a bit of trouble getting rid of the 10%
Have a good one.