Ask the Author: What do you do with your first draft?

Dear Mandy,

I’m curious as to what other writers do when starting their second draft. Do you trash what you wrote in draft one and start totally from scratch? Or do you take some of what you wrote in the first draft and refine it? Or something else entirely? How does it work for you?

Answer:
For me, the answer is pretty simple: I revise my first draft.

I know some writers who essentially start over when they reach the second draft. They might keep the basic idea, characters, or plot, but the actual manuscript gets tossed aside and they write the book again from the beginning. And honestly, I can see the appeal. Sometimes a first draft teaches you so much about the story that you realize the book you originally thought you were writing isn’t actually the book you want to write. But that’s not generally how I work.

My first drafts tend to be pretty slim. When I’m writing that first draft, I’m primarily concerned with dialogue and structure. I want to get the characters talking, get the major scenes onto the page, and figure out how the story is supposed to move from beginning to end. I’m not particularly interested in making every scene beautiful at that point. In fact, typically my first draft is downright ugly.

I’ll write things like, “[describe this later]” or “[need better transition here]” because I don’t want to stop the forward momentum of the story just because I haven’t figured out the perfect description yet. If I know something needs to happen in a scene but haven’t quite worked out how it happens, I’ll leave myself a note and keep going. The important thing is that I keep moving.

By the time I reach the end of the first draft, I have something much more valuable than a pile of pretty sentences: I have a story. I know where the characters ended up, I know what the major plot points are, and—perhaps most importantly—I know where the story doesn’t quite work yet. That’s where the second draft comes in.

My second draft is when I start turning that skeleton into an actual novel. I’ll add description and setting. I’ll work on transitions between scenes and chapters. I’ll fill in plot holes and expand scenes that moved too quickly in the first draft. I’ll look for places where a character’s motivation isn’t clear or where I’ve made a logical leap that the reader won’t be able to make with me. I’ll also discover things about the story that I couldn’t have known when I started writing it.

That’s one of the things I love about revision. You can’t always solve a story’s problems before you’ve written the story. Sometimes you have to write all the way to the end before you understand what the beginning was actually supposed to be. And once I have that complete first draft in front of me, I can see the story much more clearly.

I don’t stop there, either. I tend to work in layers. Each revision has a different purpose, and as I get closer to the final manuscript, I focus on increasingly smaller details.

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One revision might be about structure. Another might focus on character development. Then I’ll start paying more attention to individual scenes, pacing, description, word choice, repetition, and the rhythm of the prose. Eventually I’m down to the tiny things: whether a sentence is doing what I want it to do, whether I’ve used the same word three times in a paragraph, whether a particular detail belongs where I’ve put it.

It’s a little like building a house. The first draft gives me the basic structure. The second draft makes sure the walls are actually connected and the rooms are usable. Later revisions are when I worry about paint colors and whether I’ve put the light switch in the right place.

Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes a first draft reveals a fundamental problem that requires a much more drastic rewrite. Maybe I’ve taken the story in the wrong direction, or a character doesn’t work, or the structure needs to be completely reorganized. In those cases, I’ll absolutely cut large sections and rewrite them. But even then, I don’t consider the first draft a failure or wasted work. That draft taught me something.

Every first draft is an opportunity to figure out what the book is actually about. Sometimes you discover that by getting everything right. More often, you discover it by getting things wrong. That’s also why I don’t put much pressure on myself to make a first draft good. Its job isn’t to be good. Its job is to exist. I would much rather have a messy 70,000-word manuscript that I can revise than a beautifully polished 15,000 words that never gets finished.

So if you’re staring at your first draft wondering what you’re supposed to do with it, my advice is: don’t assume you have to throw it away. Read it. Figure out what you’ve actually got. Look for what’s working, what’s missing, and what’s getting in the way of the story you want to tell. Then start revising.

Your first draft doesn’t have to be the book. It just has to be enough of a book that you can figure out how to make it one. And honestly, that’s where a lot of the real writing happens.

What about you? Do you revise your first draft, start completely over, or take a different approach? I’d love to hear how other writers handle that transition, so tell me about your revision process in the comments!

This column is part of an ongoing Ask the Author series, where I answer questions from writers and readers about reading, writing, storytelling, and the creative process. If you have a question you’d like me to tackle in a future post, you can submit it through my contact page.

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