Polishing a Draft

Steps for Polishing a Draft

Let’s talk about writing and then writing again. Whenever you write something, sometimes, there is a lot of pressure about how good it must be and what your writing you should be like. A lot of writers get stressed and stop before their story gets anywhere. Before you give up and stop writing, be sure to read this: your first draft or brainstorming notes are not supposed to be The New Yorker quality on your first go! A polished piece only comes from rounds and rounds of editing, proofreading, rewriting, and more.

In this week’s post, let’s talk about what a first draft is and how to edit your writing into a polished manuscript.

The First Draft

In a first draft, you can do anything! You can break all the rules here. Fill your margins with notes, insult your characters on the sidelines, and brainstorm in scribbles. First drafts are a way to get all those ideas out on a page and just truck through the story until it is all down. It doesn’t matter if the plot is back and forth, some character’s names keep changing, and you forget one or two things. It doesn’t matter if you think it all sounds terrible—this round is about getting it all down.

Once your first draft is done, congratulate yourself with a pat on your back and say, “good job!” But, once you are done, do not stop there. First drafts even the second and third all can cause a lot of cringe and stress over thinking your story is trash. But just tell yourself, this is only the beginning—it’s a seed for the ideas and changes to come.

Draft Rewrites

I’m not going to give an in order list of what to do to your drafts since everyone’s stories have different needs and approaches about where to work on first, but I will go over a few different approaches you can take in any order.

Once your story is mostly all written out, your early edits will be about the big ideas. Start by working on and fixing the plot and your characters to make sure everything makes sense and works in the order you want it to. This might take a few attempts since there will be a lot of deleting, rewriting, and moving information around.

Naturally, after more rounds you can look at little details like grammar, punctuation, and more. It’s imperative to have all these points correct because something small like even a comma in the wrong place can be distracting for your reader and will pull them out of the story.

Further Edits

I have some steps I want to add once you think you have everything done! If your story has been edited and completed a few times, I have some things you can do to really polish your work. These options are something I personally do. I might not do them one at a time (I usually do all of these at once!) but until you get used to them, you can take your time and look for each thing within your writing.

Check Movement:

I always check each scene and see where things happen. For example, how did your character get where they are without you explaining it? Did your character pick up that teacup twice or am I imagining it? I keep track of every movement for both characters and items to make sure it is all logical, is not repeated, and is going how it needs to be.

Repetition:

Looking for movements means avoiding repetition as well. Let’s say it is a gloomy scene and you already said it is raining outside. Unless the scene is moving somewhere else, you do not have to keep mentioning the rain because your readers will remember from the first time you told them. Next, I go through and make sure I do not repeat descriptions anywhere. This goes for words too, don’t repeat cool words that stick out for their rarity. For example, “crepuscular” is a favorite. But if you use it more than once in a book—I don’t care if 100 pages separate the times you use it—that will be noticed as a repeat!

Story Balance:

Another edit I do is I print out a copy of my draft and mark in different colors the dialogue, the character’s thoughts/ feelings, and descriptions. Writing is a mix of these things, you should never write in a way that dialogue, feelings, and scene descriptions are all divided up into their own separate paragraphs. I go through and see that everything is organically mixed up and realistic. This helps if I maybe forget or drop a character’s train of thought for a few pages where there is heavy action or dialogue. This will be a flag for me to weave it into the lacking section and strengthen the story there.

Dialogue:

Dialogue can be a pain! I usually go through and read all my dialogue out loud to make sure it is easy to say and sounds natural. If something is a mouthful, I change it because, who would really say that? Reading out loud is a great way to find any mistakes or awkward sentences too. If something is hard to say or makes you stumble while reading, there is something that needs to be fixed.

Show VS Tell:

Our old friend. I go scene to scene and ask these questions: Where are they, what is going on, what does x, y, and z look like? Can I see what the characters are doing, how they are reacting, and more? I usually do a control + F search for basic phrases like “sad” and “happy” to make sure I am not telling anything instead of showing.

Conclusion

When writing and then editing a piece, don’t give up! There is always more work to be done and each thing you do is an improvement that deepens, clarifies, and enriches your story. If you ever feel stuck in a piece, put it aside for a little bit and then come back in a week or a few days. I’ve had papers where I’ve spent hours on one sentence or days agonizing over a single word. Don’t worry if you do the same thing because it is all a part of the process.

Bonus

Let’s apply what we’ve talked about to my Wednesday Writing posts. I brainstorm and write out a messy draft of out of order ideas, dumb sentences, notes, rants, and more all in one cluttered word document. Second, I reorder and cluster what information I want to put together and plan out the post’s direction and flow. Third, I open up a new document and while looking at my old draft, I rewrite the whole thing to make it all a more consistent and coherent language. I usually do three passes of edits for clarity, grammar, and voice. Then I read it out loud twice to myself and make edits. I read it out loud to whoever in my family is unfortunate enough to walk by me at this moment, I edit, and then I decide it is ready for posting.