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 ...
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