Writing Blog: the first draft.

When I first set out on my writing journey, I also began a blog. At the time, there were thousands of other more experience writers and authors blogging about the Art of Writing, so I decided to stay focused on my personal journey because I lacked confidence in my ability to blog about ‘how to’ write.

Today, after nearly twenty years, since I set myself the challenge to see if I could get something into print, I’ve decided to write about the lessons I have learnt over the years I’ve been writing. My world has completely changed since I started. My confidence has grown both in myself personally, and as a writer, too. I may not have a bestseller yet, but, to date, I have five books, over a hundred short stories, and seven non-fiction articles published, as well as winning short story competitions, too.

As I have said on many occasions, when I set out on this journey, I had no idea how English grammar worked, how to use punctuation, my spelling was awful, and I didn’t know how to create a well-constructed story. Not having the money or time available to take classes because I was working to support a young son and pay off a mortgage and loans, the only option open to me was teaching myself by reading ‘How To do’ books on all subjects linked to writing, and the publishing world.

So now, I feel, is the right time to share some of the things I’ve learnt along the way. The first important lesson I learnt was that the writing is the easy part. What comes next is the hardest, and can become the most boring part, too, but if you master it, it will be the most rewarding element of writing. I love it. To me, whether you are writing poetry, nonfiction, blog posts, flash fiction, short story or a novel, if you can’t, or won’t edit, stop writing, and find yourself a new hobby, or career.

Editing is one of the most important skills you’ll need to master. It’s where you’ll develop your story line. By the time you’ve written your first draft you will know whether your story idea has legs. Whether you’re writing poetry, nonfiction, a blog post, flash fiction, short story or a novel, it must be remembered that your first draft is just a few random ideas that have popped into your head. Yes, write the whole thing out in full, but don’t think for one minute it’s the final version and is ready to send off to a publisher. Your random ideas will need to be sorted into some compelling order for the story/ article to become an intriguing read.

Even with this blog post, I will have gone through it carefully several times, trying to find the best order in which to sort out my thought process as I try to make sure I’ve got my point over to you concisely. Writing isn’t about being in a rush to get to the finishing line as quickly as possible. Of course, if you are a journalist or working to a tight deadline then you don’t have the luxury of unlimited time for research, developing ideas, and editing. Once you have your first draft then the real work begins. If you try to cut corners while in the editing stage your work will be rejected.

There are three main stages to editing. This doesn’t mean, you only need to read through your work three times. That only happens when your work is with the publisher, or a professional editor. Remember you need to get your writing project to a high standard so it stands out from the crowd when submitting to agents and publishers. The less work you leave for an editor to do, the more chance you have for your work to be snapped up.

There are a few things you need to think about when editing. Firstly, your initial idea might’ve been the most brilliant idea you’ve ever had, but is it clear to others in your retelling. Will others understand what you’ve written down?

Remember the phrase Lost in Translation.

What I’m trying to explain to you is sometimes what we can see clearly, isn’t so clear to our readers. The scenes in our heads are not what our readers can see. Our dialogue might sound natural to us as we hear our characters speaking to each other in our minds, but our readers only see their spoken words unless we can bring our characters truly alive in our readers’ heads. This goes for all aspect of writing from our characters, dialogue, setting, pace and structure, narrative voice i.e. from whose view point the story is being told, etc. We need to work on each element carefully asking ourselves a series of questions. Keep your readers in mind as you edit.

Will your readers see:

Your Characters: Are they authentic and engaging. Do they feel real as they interact with each other. Remember, If your readers find your characters annoying, predictable stereotypes, you’ll lose them.Story line: Is your story line gripping enough? Are you just rewriting an all to familiar story? Have you come up with something original? Think outside the box and give the readers something new and exciting. Look up your genre on Amazon, and read the blurbs of a few books listed there to see how many have had the same idea as you. Pace and Structure: If your story telling is weak, and your pace is slow because you’re getting bogged down with unnecessary details then your readers will lose interest. Remember, it’s a fine balance between every element of your story telling. Language: Is your writing fluent and free flowing. Have you hooked your reader so they don’t want to put the book down? What about your images, metaphors and similes are they fresh and arresting so the readers become so immersed in the world of your characters they don’t see the words. Dull and functional writing, with confusing sentences where a reader has to return to it twice to fully understand what you are saying will jar them out of the story. Narrative Voice: It’s important to make sure you have selected the best character to tell your story. Make sure there’s a distinctive tone to both your overall story and to your characters. Give each character an original voice, too. This helps to breathe life into your book. Dialogue: It’s important to think about dialogue. If your dialogue is wooden, or unrealistic i.e. unnatural in tone or to who might be speaking , you will lose your reader’s interest. When a person speaks, sometimes it’s not what they say, but how they say it. Something implied can lead to misunderstanding. Think about body language, too. Setting: Create a vivid setting for your characters to move around in. Think hard about what brings places and settings alive to you. What creates moods and evoke atmosphere, but don’t fall back on old clichés. It was a dark stormy night has been over done. Themes and ideas: Be original! Its what all publishers and agents are looking for. You might be writing a romance, or horror, or just a cosy crime. There are billions of published books on Amazon and only seven basic plots i.e. Overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage & return, comedy, tragedy and rebirth. Since ancient times billions of stories have been told and retold down the centuries using one of these seven plot lines. So when you begin editing your tale think about how you can make your story unique or at least give a new twist to an old plot line.

Once you have worked out the main plot of your story, and you are satisfied with its construction then the next round of editing starts. Remember, there’s no limit to the number of read through you need to do, when working out your plot. Getting it right is the most important thing.

The first stage of deep editing on your manuscript starts with a sentence by sentence read through. Rewrite any area where you need to express your ideas more clearly by trimming away weak or unnecessary words. Don’t worry about your word count. Remember, you are making your story stronger.

By making your sentences stronger, you can speed up the flow of the words or the pace of the action, build tension when it is needed. Over come shifting point of view, and sort out head hopping, and information dumping. Check to see how many times you have told your readers the same thing. Jane doesn’t eat eggs. Molly told her sister that Jane doesn’t eat eggs. I don’t eat eggs, Jane said.

The question you need to ask yourself is it relevant to the storyline. Does the reader need to know that Jane doesn’t eat eggs. If it has no relevance to your plot, not part of a big twist at the end, then cut it. You need to be brave and start snipping and then rewriting to keep the plot line consistent. You can save large chunks into a new folder just in case you need to check back, but remember your readers won’t miss the bits you’ve taken out.

It might take you a few months before you reach the final read through before you let anyone else read your manuscript. Yes, I know, you’re excited, you want to send it off to a publisher, but hold back. There’s still a lot to think about. Going over the manuscript for the hundredth time can get a little boring. The characters you fell in love with are getting a little dull, and you want to move onto something new. This is the time you need to step away from your manuscript and take a break.

You’ve checked the grammar, punctuation, spelling. You’ve made sure your characters still have the same eye colour, hair colour and names you gave them at the beginning of your book. You have lost all the unnecessary words, tightened all the wordy sentences, made sure your genre fits into the publisher’s guidelines. It isn’t too long or too short a novel.

After taking a break you can read the book as a whole, try to imagine yourself as a reader and ask yourself honestly, does anything jump out at you that needs another look at, maybe a rewrite.

If you don’t trust yourself, then find someone who will be honest and give them a pack of red pens. Tell them to go for it, and don’t spare your feelings. Get them to underline anything they don’t understand. Remember, you won’t be standing looking over your reader’s shoulder explaining what’s going on, so let your proof-reader show you where you can make improvements. Your book might be far from finished, with more editing to come but it will be worth it, I promise you.

I hope you find this helpful.

Paula R. C.