Creative Writing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 10

From Drafting to Rewriting and Editing: Making Your Work Shine

IN THIS CHAPTER

Writing your first draft

Looking over the content and structure

Enlisting a kind, but not too kind, reader

People who don’t write often assume that writers just put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard); they sit down at the beginning of the book and write it straight through to the end. If only the process were this simple!

What non-writers think of as finishing a book is actually just the first stage – completing a draft. This draft is heavily revised, rewritten, and restructured, often many times, before it can be considered complete. Even then, comments from an outside reader, an agent, or a professional editor can send the writer back for more work.

In this chapter, I take you through the revising and editing processes.

Producing the First Draft

The first draft – the unrevised, raw first words that you commit to the blank page or screen – is only the beginning; and yet without it, you can get no farther. Think of it as the clay that you can later mold and work.

Write the first draft ...