First drafts are fickle creatures. They are hastily thrown together (especially if you are a “gardener” writer like myself) and need work to form the story that you see in your mind’s eye. Editing your first draft can feel like climbing a mountain without a guidebook – there is simply so much to fix, and you also have to face the dreaded realisation that not all the scenes you wrote are in fact, any good (and this is okay).
There will be many stages of editing after this particular one. You don’t need to fix everything in your first edit, but you do need to go in with a game plan.
Your goal could be:
- I want to map out character X’s plot clearly
- I want to identify the theme of my story
- I want to join my middle sequence to my ending better
The beauty of editing a first draft is you can start anywhere with your editing. You can edit from beginning to end, you can edit a particular character, or you can start with the scenes you think need the most work.
How do you go about tackling a first draft? What techniques or methods do you use?
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Alex.J.Cobalt 