I took a few minutes today to look back at some old blogs. I did this for two reasons: first, and most important, I wanted to make sure my blogs are "child friendly" since this blog is now tied to a teaching site. Second, I wanted to edit out some mindless babbling that occured in earlier blogs.
I don't blame myself for the mindless babbling. It was the nature of my blog in the beginning. My blog was supposed to help me formulate my daily writing plans. Now, my blog has grown into a tool for educating others about writing. So, now I want to make sure that my blogs offer solid lessons to anyone who will drop in and honor me by reading them.
So the lesson for today is: editing. Most people hate it. I tend to enjoy it. It's the time to make things better and try new things. Once you have taken the time to write out something, once you have poured your heart and soul into them, then it is time to tear it down and build it back up.
I have scrapped entire novel and screenplay drafts during the second draft. They became better; the ideas in them were better connected and I deepened the literary devices used. Your first draft is to get it out of your head and onto paper. Consequent drafts are to help it make sense to someone else.
The rule of thumb that seems to be used by many writers is to write at least four drafts. How I see that is as such:
Rough Draft (or Draft 1): get your thoughts down. You can babble here. You can have typos and incomplete thoughts.
Draft 2 (First rewrite): Begin to edit for clarity. Check your spelling and grammar. Begin to try new things within your work. Try adding more description. Try playing with literary devices. Find a theme for all your chapters. Just add something new.
Draft 3 (Second rewrite): Begin to edit toward a final work. This is the draft you should share with writing groups or readers for feedback.
Draft 4 (Possible final draft): Last revision incorporating feedback. Final polish.
Now, I wrote "Possible Final Draft" for the fourth draft, because after getting feedback, you may want to take the story in an entirely different direction, which brings you back to Draft 2. However, you need to set a time for finishing and an amount of max revisions or you'll go crazy editing. There has to be a time when you stop editing and start sending your work out to be published. An author once said, "A work is never truly finished, it is merely abandoned." You can revise a piece of writing until Kingdom Come, so sooner or later, you have to say, "That's enough."
My rule of thumb is to send out my fourth draft. Then, if it isn't accepted, I look at revising again. When your work is accepted by an editor, they may ask you to rewrite in a different direction or they may just revise the thing for you. So, either way, it's never really finished until it's in print. Get out that fourth draft and start to write something new while you wait to see how it's received. I've sold a few things this way. It works. . .
Please check out my new novel Luke Aloysius: Bloodline on Amazon:
Peace!
