Finishing a draft feels amazing. That moment where I sat back, sipped a cup of coffee, and thought, you are pure dead magic.
Alack, it was but a moment, and now the book must reach draft three. How do other writers structure this process? I am not sure, but my draft two plugged all the major plot holes and cleaned up the MCs’ motivations. Draft three will go to beta readers.
Drafts for me can be a little messy, but for beta readers, I like to give more polish. I will be reading for continuity, and I will also do a bit of copy editing.
Here is my official to do list:
- Cut word count down to 125,000 or less (maximum word count for a fantasy novel written by an author with only one middle initial is 120,000)
- Remove all chapters subtitled SALVAGE BITS
- Wordsmith the first 100 pages
Tellingly, none of the beta readers made it past the first fifty pages of the sample chapters of first draft. It was careening towards 200,000 words, with such a dense subplot that I was able to pull the entire thing and earmark it for another book in the series. Literally, it already has the word count of an entire book.
Oops.
On draft three, I will not make the same mistakes. Different ones, but of course. The same ones, no.
Beta readers will get the entire book, and the first hundred pages will be so delightful they will not be able to put it down until they have read to the final page. Maybe that is aiming a little high. But I’m going to do my best to make sure that the DNFs are because life lifed, not because the draft sucked.
There is a running joke on socials that the beta readers’ draft comes with plot holes and characters already lined up for the figurative (or perhaps literal) axe. Part of my insistence on making draft three GOOD is for the readers, but the other part is for me. It takes very, very little to eject me straight out of a story into deeply indignant ranting.
Five years ago I read a book, set in the Regency Era and published by a major publishing house, in which the author defined pelisse in the text. Ma’am, if I don’t know what a pelisse is before I get here and can’t be arsed to use a dictionary, pray tell why you expect me to be reading a novel set in the Regency Era at all.
For this slight, I have never forgiven the author nor read any more of her books.
I’m sure she is aware of my absence from her readership and also utterly devastated by it.
Moving on! My darling Beta Bebés shall have the tidiest copy I can produce in two weeks. You are all welcome and I’m sorry again for the hot mess that was the last draft I gave you to read.
After the official to-do list is complete, I will begin on my very sneaky unofficial to-do list.
- Put the humans back
My MMC comes from a large, messy family, helmed by (depending on who you ask) his mother or his uncle. Their world exists in stark contrast to the white-knuckled control of the shapeshifters’ spy academy. They are loud, they are chaotic, and they are my absolute favorite to write.
In the quest to drop the word count, I had to cut my favorite chapter, set in an absolute trainwreck of a day in the MMC’s family home. I still miss it.
There may be a way to smuggle them all back in at the beginning of the climax. Fingers crossed!
Allison Ringness 