How much does you second draft differ fromthe first?

[lfraser]

This is probably a question that has a thousand possible answers or no answer at all, since nobody but me has seen my novel, but I'm trying to get a handle on whether what I've written is salvageable or not. I'm very close to the end of my WIP, and am having horrible doubts about it. Plot holes, inconsistencies, poor world-building, baggy dialogue -- the lot.

I feel like I'll be re-writing much, if not most of it, on the second draft. If that's the case, it'll take me just as long to edit as it did to write. Is that common, or it it an indication that I've spent 14 months flogging a dead horse?

[HeronW]

Rewrite as long as it takes. Make a chapter by chapter synopsis--that'll let you see if you've major holes or ends left untied--unless they'll be taken care of in a 2nd book. Then post in the appropriate Show Your Work for readers--you'll be expected to give the hairy eyeball to other folks stuff. That's a good way to learn to see our own mistakes--by seeing others.

[Mythica]

My second draft was outrageously different from the first draft. Of course, I was sixteen when I wrote it, so it was horrendous by default. With every rewrite, your book is going to be substantially better.

I say keep flogging that dead horse. It'll spring back to life eventually.

[Charlie Horse]

First draft - 117,000 words.
Second draft - 99,400 words.

'nuff said. I'm a firm believer that you have to allow your first draft to suck. If you're trying to write something perfect the first time your creativity will be stunted. You have plenty of time to fix it. Don't worry about how long it will take. You're not running a race. You're trying to write the best book you possibly can.

[Prawn]

Rewrites take me longer than the first draft.

[donut]

Rewrites definitely take longer than the first draft for me. First drafts are all about spewing my ideas out as I can before I forget them. The real work -- building a cohesive plot, developing characters, crafting elegant sentences -- all comes in round 2. And don't even get me started on drafts 3,4,5 etc.

[IdiotsRUs]

My second drafts are almost unrecognisable from the first. Because when I'm writing I keep geting more 'ooooh' ideas, and scribble notes etc. So that all goes in my second / fifty third draft.

First drafts are just for getting it down on paper. You can't really work on it till it's down. Think of it as the grey undercoat to your Picasso.

[Shadow_Ferret]

Hardly any change at all between 1st and 2nd draft.

There's probably a pretty noticeable different between the 1st and 10th drafts though.

[steveg144]

Wow, let's see:
1. change of title
2. change from first-person to third-person
3. tossed roughly 20,000 words
4. added 25,000 new words

You know, minor cosmetic touch-ups. :-)

[Stijn Hommes]

It all depends. Just recently I listened to an episode of the podcast "I should be Writing" in which Mur Lafferty quoted another author by saying that any piece of work is ready to be sent out when subsequent drafts only differ approximately 10%. One of her own mottos tells people that they should allow themselves to suck.

When you combine those two givens, it's pretty much a certainty that you can salvage this story assuming you stick with it and continue to revise if the first revision isn't satisfactory. It doesn't matter if it takes 1 revision or 10, all the issues you mentioned can be solved with enough work.

[ClaudiaGray]

It depends, but usually:

1) The pacing is improved, because when I can read the whole thing through, I can better see where it drags and where it's too frenetic;

2) The characterization is more focused, because while most of my characters click for me fairly early, there are always one or two who can't make up their minds about how they feel through all this until I'm at the end;

3) It's tighter, because I tend to write long; and

4) At least one big scene has switched locations, because I could never get the mood/feel right with the first setting.

[lfraser]

That's all good to hear.

I'm just having one of those days, I guess. I got up feeling great about getting as far as I have only to find that my entire output from yesterday is a monologue that, while neccessary for the ideas it contains, is dreadful to read. I've scrupulously avoided infodumps for almost 400 pages, and there it was, and a real stinker it is, too. I thought, if this is the best I'm capable of now, how bad is the first 50 pages?. And then I remembered that the first 80 pages of this WIP contain the four different, failed shots I've taken at a first chapter, and went into a frenzy of opening paragraph attempts, all of which were uniformly awful.

But the end is in sight. I hope. And the next one will have one main character and a linear plot.

[IdiotsRUs]

Ahh but now you've recognised it's an info dump. you can do something about it , like thread it through the previous pages or...


It's like standing up and saying ' My name is X and I'm an alcoholic' Once you've seen the problem, that's half the battle. Now you can fix it.

I shall refrain from mentioning the authors / editors who did not notice info dumps....which means you are better than them, cos you know what you done wrong!

Huzzah!

[deathwizard]

My second draft is just a cleaned-up version of the first. It's my third draft that really changes, because that's the draft that I dissect.

[David I]

My second draft is usually longer by a few chapters, and a few things are fiddled with. But I write very slow first drafts.

There is no right or wrong. I have friends who rewrite about 85% of their first drafts.

There's only one draft that matters: the final draft. Get there however you can.

[Eldritch]

The first draft of my middle grade WIP was 50,000 words.
The second draft was 40,000.
I'm halfway through the third, and it's down to 38,500.
A few more rewrites and I'll have nothing left but a blank piece of paper.

[Matera the Mad]

I wrote a couple of "practice" novels in one year. The next year I wrote the good stuff. A couple of years later....

Guess what: writing is child's play. Editing is what puts hair on your chest.

[johnrobison]

I have a post on my own experience with editing and rewriting process on my blog today, at http://jerobison.blogspot.com . My edited final work is immeasurably smoother and better than what I started with, even though all the content is essentially the sale. It's just so much more, well, polished.

[Harper K]

I rewrote about 75% of the first draft to make the second draft.
I rewrote about 75% of the second draft to make the third draft.
I rewrote about 50% of the third draft to make the fourth draft.
I rewrote about 50% of the fourth draft to make the fifth draft.

And now I'm on the sixth draft. And I look to be rewriting, hm, about 35 - 40% of the fifth draft to create the sixth draft.

Eventually, I'm gonna get it right!

My fingers may have given out by then, though.

[lfraser]

Hey, thanks, everyone. This is all very encouraging. I know this is just a practise novel, but I do want to finish it, and I do want it to be coherent and reasonably well-written. It would be very easy for me to toss it aside right now.

[bluntforcetrauma]

Not so very much. I just tend to add as I go along.

[kzmiller]

Depends on where in my career you're looking at.

First book ever: 250,000 word monstrosity that took me a year to write, 5 rewrites over a six year period, no original words left between first draft and final draft.

Second book: 120,000 word monstrosity that I abandoned because I needed to rethink it. Might get back to it someday.

Third book: 80,000 word that took me a month to write. Quickly edited with almost no changes, but when I reread it after several rejections, I blushed with embarrassment. I didn't let it rest long enough. It's on my to-do pile.

Fourth book: Wrote itself in a month, 125,000 words. Noticed plot holes and prose issues quickly but, thanks to hard-won experience, let it rest. It's coming along beautifully with some large plot changes and a lot of deepening into the characters, but it's strangely not changed as much as others. It's just gotten deeper and richer.

Fifth book: Wrote itself in a month, 100,000 words. When I go to rewrite it I plan on going for the characters' throats first and choking the living snot out of them until they give their secrets up to me.

Sixth book: Written over about a four month stretch. I'd love to reach deeper into the characters, but as I work on it it reaches into me instead. It's difficult work and I'm hoping it will be my best yet, but I only work on it for week-long stretches because I haven't figured out how to deal with the ending yet.

Seventh book: Written in three months. I've been poking at it while it's festering (er, I mean resting.) I've had enough experience now that I don't think I'll change very much on the edit. I may still get fooled (I've been fooled many times now by my own perceptions) but I sense that I won't be making many changes. I'll just be enhancing what was already a pretty good idea to start with.

I don't think I could have written as clean a seventh book if I didn't have the experience of wrestling with the others. I've learned that I write first drafts fast, and that it takes me about 2-5 years to come up with a copy that has the major kinks worked out. I've also learned that over polishing lands you with white rice, which is why I now juggle many projects instead of obsessing with one.

I hope that helps.

[Axelle]

I think how much you need to re-write each draft depends on each writer. Everyone has his own way of doing it. I know I hate to read myself over and I seldom change more than a few words here and there of my first draft. But I've also see a picture of Flaubert's handwritten manuscript, and it's a nightmare of deletions, crossed-out sentences, added notes, etc. So that's really a matter of what works better for you.

Also, you might want to give yourself a few days before starting to re-work on your first draft. Experience tells me that your work always seems terrible when you read yourself over at once, but when you read yourself over a few days or weeks later, sometimes you think, "hey, that's actually pretty good !" Perhaps you just need a little more distance to better appreciate your work. Or better yet - ask someone to beta it and see what they think of it.

[triceretops]

I usually make about 6-8 passes through it, with each pass taking care of a certain element, which can be mind-boggling. But by the time I reach the last draft, a lot of fat sentences have been carved out--the pace quickened--passive removed--plot holes fixed, continuity, and so on.

Tri

[donroc]

From chaos to organization and flesh on the characters (plus more research when needed) in preparation for the next several refining drafts.

[Feathers]

I feel like I'll be re-writing much, if not most of it, on the second draft. If that's the case, it'll take me just as long to edit as it did to write. Is that common, or it it an indication that I've spent 14 months flogging a dead horse?

It depends on your writing style. I write my novels in 3-5 months. Then, I spend another month or so doing extensive rewrites, and then I edit. So if it was me in your situation, yes I would be flogging a dead horse.

But i'm not you. I've heard of LOTS of writers that write terrible, terrible first drafts, and then totally hack the thing up to get it right. I think Ann Lamont is one of them, and I know Ann Packer is one of them. That's the way they write and there's nothing wrong with it.

If you need some kind of guidance, try re-evaulating your novel. If you just can't seem to figure out how to fix it, you may want to just move on. But if things start developing and the inspiration is there, then work on it.

Sometimes I think of the first draft as sorting through a pile of puzzle pieces, and finding which ones actually belong to my puzzle. Then drafts 2-3 I'm putting the puzzle together.

Good luck with it

-Feathers

[ishtar'sgate]

Such an individual thing. I revise as I go along so you'd think my novel wouldn't need much additional revision. After setting it aside and doing something entirely different for a few months I came back to it and made fairly drastic changes. I completely dumped a whole history I'd created for the building of Stonehenge. I made character changes, inserted missing details then cut out the last two chapters and revamped the entire ending. It only took a couple of months though, which for me wasn't all that long.
Linnea

[argenianpoet]

First draft - 117,000 words.
Second draft - 99,400 words.

'nuff said. I'm a firm believer that you have to allow your first draft to suck. If you're trying to write something perfect the first time your creativity will be stunted. You have plenty of time to fix it. Don't worry about how long it will take. You're not running a race. You're trying to write the best book you possibly can.

Amen to that! My current WIP is well somewhat lacking but I'm not letting that stop me. There are some places that need to be filled in with more story, ie. writing, but other than that I'm pressing forward. All too often what happens to me is I send my chapters through the Critique Grinder and I end up rewriting and rewriting, and so now I'm not doing that. Now, I'm going to write my book entire and then in the second draft rip it to shreds in a rewrite. Is this the cas with any one else?

[ishtar'sgate]

Now, I'm going to write my book entire and then in the second draft rip it to shreds in a rewrite. Is this the cas with any one else?
I'm too much of a fusspot. I TRY to get it right the first time. I've never succeeded although I've talked to writers who have and I so wish I could too. Revisions are torture.
Linnea

[Constantine K]

My second draft is going to use the skeleton of the first novel, but probably be substantially different in the end. The first one is like drawing a picture with a ragged pencil: you can see the shape of the story, but it's not until you break out the brushes and paints that it really becomes something remarkable.

[RJK]

I won't call it the first draft, because it has been edited and cleaned up with several readthroughs and jumps back to fix things that changes late in the book required.
I submitted that draft, let's call it the Beta draft, to some beta readers and put chapter one on SYW. What I've learned from their comments will require an additional chapter and several scenes, plus a number of scenes will need to be re-written. Overall, I think I will be making changes improvements throughout the novel.

[rugcat]

4) At least one big scene has switched locations, because I could never get the mood/feel right with the first setting.That's one of the things that seems totally obvious after you do it, -- but only after you've spent hours and hours, sometimes days, unsuccessfully trying to make the scene work.

[lfraser]

There are whole chapters in my novel that seem just right to me. I do have to say that. They'll still need editing, of course -- that goes without saying. But they felt right from the get-go. I posted one of them on SYW a while back and the response was moderately encouraging and the crits helpful. It ain't great literature, but it is at least competent, for a noob. And I am committed to finishing this novel. More than anything, I'd love to finish it with every chapter feeling as right as the few that I knew were decent while I was writing them. Now, if I could just figure out what was going through my head when I wrote them, the prospect of editing would be a lot less intimidating.