Thickets

I’m currently stuck in the thickets of a second draft. It’s both easier and harder than a first. Easier because I know what I need to do to improve the story; inspiration comes more easily. Harder because the first draft had a rhythm and a pace that falls apart when I begin to add or move chapters around. High points cluster together instead of being evenly spaced. Boosting the presence of one character in a chapter means reducing that of another – even though that other’s moment worked perfectly. 

Someone asked me, But didn’t you have all that worked out? And I said, Yes. I thought so. And I really did. But now that the first draft has been read – critically and carefully – by someone whose opinion I value, and trust, I see how much work there still is to do.

Which is fine. The book is only going to get better. But it makes me see the truth in the observation that a first draft is often just an overblown outline. Well, mine at least.

Back to the re-writing.

Note: 

I wrote this before reading Shirley-Anne McMillan's Monday blog. Any similarities are genuinely coincidental.