Two Year Novel Course: Set 7 (Second Draft)

By Lazette Gifford

Book 7 of the 2YN series moves from the art of writing to the crafting of edits. This book takes on some of the major problems, including when the book is too short.

There is no need to worry about editing. This is as much a part of writing as the first draft, and can be just as much fun!

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Conspiracy of Authors
• Release date: Feb 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781936507290

Lazette Gifford

Lazette is an avid writer as well as the owner of Forward Motion for Writers and the owner/editor of Vision: A Resource for Writers.It's possible she spends too much time with writers.And cats.

Book preview

Two Year Novel Course: Set 7

The Second Draft

By

Lazette Gifford

Copyright 2013 Lazette Gifford

An ACOA Publication

www.aconspiracyofauthors.com

ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-936507-29-0

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Introduction: The Second Draft

Week 66 -- Second Draft, Part One -- The Beginning of the End. . . .

Week 67 -- Second Draft, Part Two --Why A Second Draft?

Week 68 -- Second Draft, Part Three -- Getting Started

Week 69 -- Second Draft, Part Four -- Dealing with the Big Problems

Week 70 -- Second Draft, Part Five --Continuity and Timelines/1

Week 71 -- Second Draft, Part Six -- Continuity and Timelines/2

Week 72 -- Second Draft, Part Seven -- Expanding Skipped Scenes

Week 73 -- Second Draft, Part Eight -- Adding Subplots, Part 1

Week 74 -- Second Draft, Part Nine -- Adding Subplots, Part 2

Week 75 -- Second Draft, Part Ten --Adding Subplots, Part 3

Week 76 -- Second Draft, Part Eleven -- Adding New Obstacles

Week 77 -- Second Draft, Part Twelve -- Cutting Rather than Adding

End of Section 7

Introduction: The Second Draft

You did it! You wrote the novel!

But your work isn't done yet. Once you have finished the first draft, you're going to start thinking about what you need to do next. Some writers will find they need to rework significant parts of their novel. Others will find they only need to do line-edits and some other minor clean up.

This means some of you will not need to do everything out of this next section, but even if you don't think you need to do a full second draft of the novel, read through each class and answer the assignment questions. This book isn't intended as a one-novel-only answer. There may be a time in the future, while writing another book, when you face some of the problems I cover in the second draft and editing sections, even if you don’t have to worry about this time. It never hurts to look something over, and to have it in mind for later.

Week 66 -- Second Draft, Part One -- The Beginning of the End. . . .

Okay, brace yourselves. I'm about to say those two words which, next to outline and synopsis, seems to bring terror to writers:

Rewrites.

Edits.

Get a grip. I know these are considered evil words by many new writers, who cringe at the mere sight of them. However, these are really two of the most important friends a writer can have. Rewrites and edits are gifts of the muses. Because of the joy of different drafts, nothing has to be perfect the first time around -- or the second, for that matter. In fact the existence of rewrites and edits means you get as many times to rework your story as it takes to create what you want.

Some people will abuse the privilege. They will insist nothing they've written will ever be good enough, and they'll rewrite and tinker with a story forever. That's actually not improving the material; it's a mechanism to make certain they never have to send a story out and face rejections.

Others will rewrite as they go, and believe they don't have to look the material over again at all. This is another bad attitude to have, especially for a new writer. It's not the editing as you go along that's a problem, but rather the belief you fixed everything and the refusal to believe it might be made better by a little more time and effort.

If you wrote the story over a period of months or years, it is unlikely you kept every detail the same. It's even likely the style changed as you grew more confident with the story. Even the most tightly pre-plotted stories often subtly change in the telling. If you are a relatively new writer, the chances are you learned a few tricks the more you wrote. The older material might not only benefit by a rewrite to tighten things, but you might even find a few mistakes you didn't realize at the time.

Rewriting is all about attitude. Chris Baty made an excellent point of this in the last pages of No Plot? No Problem!:

Don't waste your time thinking about the agents, the publishers or the market. It's just you, and it's just fun. And, should things go well, you'll have a convenient paper record of your heroic deeds to share for decades to come.

Remember a few important points:

1. Rewriting and editing are as much a part of being an author as is writing the first draft. Some people may do the majority of the rewrite/edit during the initial writing, but you would be wise not to think this all you need do.

2. The more often you do rewrites, the easier the process becomes, just like writing in general.

3. This is your chance to bring the story closer to the vision of what you first saw in your mind. Don't waste the opportunity! A few scene changes, a little more care with the description might make all the difference between a good scene and unforgettable one.

4. Here is a truth -- at least for most writers -- which you need to keep in mind: If you never get through the rewrite phase, you'll never be published.

If you aren't going to send material out, don't waste your time worrying about rewrites. You are a hobby writer, and not someone interested in a career. There's nothing wrong with hobbies, as long as you're honest with yourself and the others who are trying to help you.

How you create your first draft is not important, as long as you get it onto the computer before you edit -- because, unless you have a typewriter, you are going to have to get it there before you can print and prepare to send it out. So if you write by hand, type the stuff in and work with it there. A typed story looks far different than one handwritten. Most people find they approach the editing typed material with more of a sense of professionalism.

Okay, so you have the finished first draft of your manuscript. You've done it! In fact you have accomplished the one thing many would-be novelists never achieve -- finishing a project.

However, when looking at the material, you find you either hate the mere sight of it after working on it for so long, or you don't know where to start