Now the Hard Part

[the25thstar]

I just finished my novel's first draft, which came to under 129,000 words. Not relishing the rewrites I already have planned, and the ones I'll discover are needed but it feels great to have the story done. Whoo!

 

[pmmg]

Great job!

Now....the endless editing

 

[ThinkerX]

I strongly suggest you let that draft sit untouched and unread for at least a few weeks, or better yet a few months. That way, it will 'read fresh' when rewrite time comes.

As to the rewrite, expect it to grow by as much as 50%.

 

[pmmg]

Well, I just started to rewrite my own. If it grows by 50%, that would be something. It would make the second one look skimpy too, I think...

 

[The Dark One]

Mine tend to shrink rather than grow, as I cut out all the fat and waffle. I like my stories to stay close to the spine - anything that doesn't drive the plot has to be cut, no matter how good it is.

 

[ThinkerX]

Well, I just started to rewrite my own. If it grows by 50%, that would be something. It would make the second one look skimpy too, I think...

In your case, I suspect going from passive voice to active voice will greatly increase the word count.

 

[pmmg]

Well...I'd not expect too much. I think it is 93K but the editor had me cut a lot. I would not be upset if it grew to 100K

Just ran the same test on story 2. Ill be happy to report the passive sentence score is 3%.

Though....to be honest, you've not read it. So, you don't really know what is true and what is not. I believe it when I see it.

 

[JBCrowson]

I just finished my novel's first draft, which came to under 129,000 words. Not relishing the rewrites I already have planned, and the ones I'll discover are needed but it feels great to have the story done. Whoo!

congratulations on getting that draft done!! Now go take a break, read a couple of books. I'm finding reading my draft out loud to someone is really helping me see stuff I need to fix. That might work for you too.

 

[ThinkerX]

Well...I'd not expect too much. I think it is 93K but the editor had me cut a lot. I would not be upset if it grew to 100K

Just ran the same test on story 2. Ill be happy to report the passive sentence score is 3%.

Though....to be honest, you've not read it. So, you don't really know what is true and what is not. I believe it when I see it.

3% passive sentence score is much, much better than the previous one.

As to the rest, I look forward to the results.

 

[Penpilot]

But seriously though, just finishing probably puts you in the top 10% of people who wish to write.

 

[BJ Swabb]

Congrats! Though the first draft is just the beginning of the adventure. I often find out that though I finished the first draft that when I go back into it and rewrite everything for the second draft things begin to change. I make a plan to do at the least three drafts before I actually really edit the grammar and do the finishing touches, that way I am sure I have the story, characters, and over all plot right. After the first draft I send my work out to Beta Readers and other friends (maybe people on here you would like to look over it) to get feedback and over all ideas for your book. After that I go in for the second draft where I rewrite everything from the beginning. I read through the first draft while reading all the notes I took on the side for every area mentioned that needs work. I add, change and make the book better. After that I resend the novel out to the Betas and Friends for another opinion. And do it all over again, maybe one more after that. Once I do all that I finish with my final draft and that is where I just touch things up, add in what I need to and edit the book completely (though editing isn't my strong suit so I have my sister do the grammar part of things). I then go with my next step which is finding a cover artist, and a publisher.

Anyways just giving my thoughts on how to move forward with thing. I am actually on my third draft of Volume One of my series, and working on my second draft on books two through ten. Still haven't written the other five books yet as I want to know all I can with the first ten novels before continuing. But hey I'll get there. I have written a mystery novel, a superhero novel and a DC Comic novel on Vixen so I've been through the whole work of everything. Although i did it all with a partner, so this round of doing everything on my own is a little different. More challenging to be honest.