Meredith Mansfield, Author

Well, so now I have a first draft and it’s been allowed to rest for about a month.  Time to start the second draft.

For me, the “second draft” involves multiple passes.

1. The first thing I do is to read through and take care of the notes I made during the first draft. 
2. I know I will need to flesh out the villain and side characters.  My first draft is always very centered on the protagonist and other characters don’t get all the attention the deserve in the first round.
3.  Depending on how fast I was writing the first draft, I may need to add descriptions.
4. I may also need to expand on the internal monologue and indications of emotion.

The word count often grows by a third during the second draft.

Then it’s time to get some alpha readers. At this point, I’ve written it and read through it at least three times.  I’m much too close to it.  It needs fresh eyes. This also forces me to let it rest again while the readers have it. Time to work on one of those other projects for a while again.

For me, it’s most helpful to get readers who will look at the entire novel as a block at this point. They’re better able to judge pacing, among other things. 

When the comments or critiques come back from the alpha readers, it’s time for the third draft, incorporating revisions based on the readers’ comments. I admit, it’s a little daunting to have more than one set of comments on the entire book at one time. So I tend to break the work up into more manageable chunks, like a chapter at a time. On the plus side, it makes it really obvious if more than one reader highlights the same problem. Then you know you need to fix it. 

After the third draft, and while the manuscript is resting once again, I begin preparing to submit. This is when I write and polish the query letter and try to shine up the synopsis. I will look for readers and critiques on both of these, as well.  The query letter is probably the single most revised piece of writing in the whole process.

When I think I have the query letter in pretty good shape, I’ll read through one more time and do a polishing edit. This is the really nitpicky revision, looking at words and sentences rather than at the story itself. 

Depending on how extensive the revisions on the third draft were and how confident I feel, I may look for another reader or two at this point. Since I’m looking for more detailed comments, this reading works well in a chapter exchange format.

Then it’s time to take a deep breath and start submitting.