First Draft Complete: Now What? Andy Zach Will Tell You!

Andy Zach here to tell you what to do when you achieve your book’s First Draft Complete stage. First of all, celebrate!

Take a day or two off! Go hunting zombie turkeys!

But you say, “Andy! I want to publish my book! Can I just ship my first draft to a publisher or editor or agent?”

Of course you can do that! They’ll be happy to take your money! But on the off chance you want to sell your book, you need to do more work. That’s what this blog is about.

First Draft Complete: My Editing Steps

First, these are my steps I’ve borrowed from articles I’ve read. You’re different and may need to/want to do this differently. But these are my starting points for my second draft.

These are the actual steps I followed for my latest novel Paranormal Privateers.

Paranormal Privateer Edits: The First Three Steps

Don’t worry: I’ve deleted spoilers out of these notes. I plan my editing before I even start writing.

1. Read through, noting problems – For me, these’ll be comments inserted in my Word document.
2. Add missing scenes, if necessary – This step, well as the next two, depend upon having a scene chart, as documented in my earlier blog post.
3. Delete/combine scenes, paragraphs – The goal here is to simplify and clarify for the reader what is happening and eliminate unnecessary words. I had 98,000 words after the first draft.

Paranormal Privateer Edits: The Next Three Steps

4.  Rewrite 1st POV into 3rd. – If you write only in 3rd person point of view “he said, she said”, you won’t need this step. But I wrote several characters from a first-person point of view.  I had too many first-person POVs, in fact, so I had to trim this down.  The narrative becomes too confusing and the reader’s focus can be diluted.

5. Review character arcs: Paranormal Privateers has eight protagonists, five antagonists, and minor characters:  You need to check character arcs, their entries and exits. Are they introduced properly? What happens to them during their scenes and afterward? Do they teleport between scenes? What happens to them?

6. Update timeline and scene chart, detailed scene flow. See here for more information on this important chart.  Ask yourself,  Is this scene really necessary? Do the scenes fit together on the overall timeline?

The Final Set of Edits

7. Read the book out loud. I’ve found this is the best way to find awkwardly worded sentences. I also find logic errors and wrong words that I’ve used.
8. Look for passive words: is, were, was, am, be, been. Combine this check with Grammarly Free Version to find spelling and grammar errors.
9. Review adverb use. Search for “ly”. Adverbs should be used sparingly, like salt.
10. Read aloud again
11. Finally, send the manuscript to my editor, Dori Harrell

What’s Next?

Do you think this is all that’s necessary for the next great American novel?  Nope! The first half of the editing process is complete. Now you must work with your editor to perfect your novel.

That’s it for now!  Andy Zach, signing out!