The Second and Third Draft

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned my current WIP novel, “Eye For An Eye.” Time for an update. ::rubs hands together:: Here we go!

Well, as you know from this post, I completed the first draft of my Lady Sheriff novel, “Eye For An Eye.” I put it into the hands of my beta readers: my mother and sister. One is a mystery junkie; the other is a writer who isn’t shy about telling me what doesn’t work in my novels. After they read it through, we had a number of conversations on the characters, theories, little plot holes, historical inaccuracies, etc – it was determined that the novel was solid and I could move forward with the revisions. I can’t begin to say how relieved I was, that there wasn’t a glaringly major plot hole that can destroy a WIP. Remember that episode of “Modern Family” where they’re on a train and Cam and Phil pester their favorite novelist, and more or less break him? Hailey joins in at one point. Then Luke ironically saves the author’s day with a piece of geography he learned, that can make the novelist’s story plausible. I love that show.

Anyway, I combed through the draft a few times myself, making notes and rewriting certain parts. I did a second draft, implementing those changes. I also added four thousand words to the wordcount, bringing it up to 71,000 words. Yay! I completed the second draft in a week and I let it sit for a couple of weeks and worked on a new short story, did revising on another short story at an editor’s request, and wrote a few blog posts. During that little break, I realized because the second draft went so quickly, I needed to do a more major revision for the third draft.

I decided to follow this blog post’s advice and basically rewrite the entire novel, from start to finish. I used the existing draft as my template and started the third draft from scratch. I’m almost at the half-way point, but the change has been ::massive::! It’s a daunting process, to rewrite a novel. You do want to throw in the towel. You wonder if it’s worth it. But from past experiences, I found that this process works for me. I apply it to every novel I write and I’ll promote this piece of writing advice to whoever will listen. The prose, the pacing, the dialog – greatly improved. Tomorrow I’ll be on Chapter 10, which is nearly halfway through the novel. If I’m diligent, I’ll complete it on June 15^th. We’ll see.

So, what does your revision process look like?

Until next time!