The Second Time’s the Charm

During the NaNoWriMo Now What? Months, we’re focused on helping you revise, edit, and publish your story. Today, writer Melanie Marie Martinez shares some editing advice on how to get to your second draft:

You are never the same person twice.

My grandfather told me this once, and I’ve taken it as something of a life motto. Who I am today is smarter, older, and wiser than who I was yesterday. That means that no matter how good or bad the words are today, they will always be better, or at least different, tomorrow. This is why revision is so important.

Here are some tips for writers who, like me, find it hard to revisit that initial draft:

1. Don’t throw out your entire first draft.

When it comes to writing and editing, people often say not to worry about your first draft because it’ll always be terrible. I’ve found that to be unfair. Sure, at 3 AM you might have difficulty stringing a sentence together with your daily word limit just out of your reach, but sometimes that pressure gives you diamonds—revelations you might have not come across if you were too busy overthinking!

There should be a healthy middle ground. Don’t throw it all away, but don’t treat it like it emerged from your brain fully formed and ready for publication. A second draft lets you sift out the diamonds from the coal and gives you chance to polish them.

2. Bite off only as much as you can chew.

Looking back at how much blood, sweat, and tears went into that first draft, you might suffer a bit of post-trauma at the thought of going back into the trenches again. Set up a daily and monthly revision schedule, whether that’s a chapter a day, an hour a day, or a thousand words a day. Go big or small, but be realistic to what you feel comfortable doing.

Give yourself benchmarks for the rest of the year, and cut yourself slack if the standards turn out to be too high. Revisit the schedule, revise, and keep on trucking! As long as you don’t stop, you haven’t lost.

3. If all else fails, phone a friend.

The moment you hand your writing off to someone else, it becomes a thing of its own. Though many writers are private people, a middleman can often help. If you struggle with doing a second draft yourself, hand it off to someone you trust and have them run a “sanity check.” A bare bones assessment from a close friend or longtime writing partner can wipe away some of the fog from your nostalgia goggles and give you a better idea of where to start tightening up draft two.

The truth of the matter is this: it is easier to keep starting over than wade through the brackish waters of that dreaded first draft. But it is also true that, day by day, we are constantly moving towards our best selves. Likewise, with every passing draft, your novel will become the best version of itself.

Melanie Marie Martinez is a graduate of the Long Island University Creative Writing MFA. Since she was thirteen years old, she’s been writing fiction, poetry, and comic book scripts. When she’s not working on the Great American Novel, she tutors English and Creative Writing, teaches a Blogging for Business seminar, and helps write university-level degree programs. She was born in the swamps of South Florida and currently stalks the jungles of New York City. She can be reached at www.martinezmariemelanie.com.

Top photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash.