Writing the first draft is a major step for a writer
It’s what separates an idea from an actual story. About 3 months ago I announced that I finished writing my first draft and how I was moving on to the editing phase. You think writing a first draft would be the hard part, but I am learning that it is just the beginning.
Hello everybody, my name is Jacob and I am writing a story that will kick off a superhero universe and yes I am currently in the editing phase of the novel. It has been quite the journey even though it has been only the beginning. I have never made it past this point before.
In the past I would write a first draft and then get so overwhelmed by the idea of editing that I would just drop the project. So this is a huge step for me. But it also begged the question:
How do I even start editing?
I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed to edit yet besides dialogue and grammar so I decided to just type up whatever I had in my notebook and see how it goes from there...
What can go wrong?
I jumped right into transcribing the ancient language that is called my handwriting. I mean seriously my handwriting is good I promise, but to handwrite over 120 pages, there are bound to be a few incoherent words that left me scratching my head at what I was even trying to say. So I just rephrased what I had originally written, or if I was lucky, I would eventually remember what I wrote. However the more I started to type, the more my story started to fall apart
That is when I discovered the harsh truth of writing, I wasn’t just editing my first draft,
I needed to do a rewrite it…
I carefully reread my first draft and took some notes of what worked, what seemed like an interesting idea I should have expanded more on. What were also some elements that didn’t work, what were scenes that should’ve taken less pages or removed entirely.
I then looked through all the notes that I had and outlined a new version of the story.
Now I can go back to what I was doing?
Nope, I then realized that my opening chapters don’t fully mesh well with this rewritten version, something felt off; so I rewrote some concepts of what can be the new opening chapters. I really let myself think outside the box for this, trying to not be bound by the outlining rules that I established in the previous draft.
But no matter what I did, my opening chapters weren’t working. I spent over a month trying to work on chapter one and two, but then it hit me
Just skip over to the major driving point of my draft, and write the opening later.
I was so fixated on writing everything from beginning to end in a singular timeline. I didn’t let myself go ahead and write out of order. It was as if I was bound by this imaginary rule to write in order, but it turns out that writing out of order is a common method. I did some research and it turns out that it is not uncommon to write out of order and is in fact encouraged, which makes sense now, but felt like a new discovery to me.
After adapting to this method, I am able to go forward with this rewritten version with more confidence (Writer's block did not beat me this time). The thing that was stressing me was the fact that Chapter One will not be the first introduction to this book, but to the series as a whole which yeah can sound a bit intimidating. But I can say with confidence that I am writing a story that I know I can be proud of.
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