Books are the bread and butter of my writing income.
And as you know I'm currently working on my latest romance novel.
The manuscript is written and now I'm going through the second draft.
And it got me to thinking about how many people say that second draft is first draft minus 10%. In other words, the second draft should be a tightening up of the first draft and so take out whatever is unnecessary, which they always say is about 10% of what you've written.
And I used to believe that and so my second draft was always me looking for ways to cut words out.
Yet as the years progress I find more and more that my second draft equals my first drafts PLUS 30%. (my percentage may be wrong but I definitely add to my second draft, not take from it.)
That's because I find it easier to get the first draft written rather than getting it right. That has always been a favourite saying of mine (which I made up myself), "Don't get it right, get it written."
This is because my creativity flows better and my focus is razor-sharp if I'm writing without thinking about if it's right or not. I just need to get my book written. And most of the time, I find that even in parts of it where I think I've gone wrong, I haven't. On reading it through at second draft stage, I find it's fine.
And then comes the first edit which is where I read through my manuscript and, if it's fiction, I add more bits of detail such as what people are wearing or what they're eating, or I write more about their environment or I add more dialogue to conversations.
If I'm writing non-fiction I go deeper into explanations of how or why to do things or talk more about how things came to be. Whatever it is, I always find more to add in the second draft.
That's not to say that I don't remove unnecessary things, because I do. But I still find more to add than to subtract.
And that's not a bad thing if it helps in the flow of creativity.
So ignore what anyone says about how to edit a book. Just do whatever makes your book the best it can be.
And enjoy writing that first draft because that's always the fun part.
-------------------------------
Write Any Book in 28 Days or Less.
Laid out in an easy to follow style and suitable for writing fiction and non-fiction. Just follow the course, working just one hour a day, and in less than a month, you’ll have your manuscript written.
http://ruthiswriting.com/links/writequickly.html
And as you know I'm currently working on my latest romance novel.
The manuscript is written and now I'm going through the second draft.
And it got me to thinking about how many people say that second draft is first draft minus 10%. In other words, the second draft should be a tightening up of the first draft and so take out whatever is unnecessary, which they always say is about 10% of what you've written.
And I used to believe that and so my second draft was always me looking for ways to cut words out.
Yet as the years progress I find more and more that my second draft equals my first drafts PLUS 30%. (my percentage may be wrong but I definitely add to my second draft, not take from it.)
That's because I find it easier to get the first draft written rather than getting it right. That has always been a favourite saying of mine (which I made up myself), "Don't get it right, get it written."
This is because my creativity flows better and my focus is razor-sharp if I'm writing without thinking about if it's right or not. I just need to get my book written. And most of the time, I find that even in parts of it where I think I've gone wrong, I haven't. On reading it through at second draft stage, I find it's fine.
And then comes the first edit which is where I read through my manuscript and, if it's fiction, I add more bits of detail such as what people are wearing or what they're eating, or I write more about their environment or I add more dialogue to conversations.
If I'm writing non-fiction I go deeper into explanations of how or why to do things or talk more about how things came to be. Whatever it is, I always find more to add in the second draft.
That's not to say that I don't remove unnecessary things, because I do. But I still find more to add than to subtract.
And that's not a bad thing if it helps in the flow of creativity.
So ignore what anyone says about how to edit a book. Just do whatever makes your book the best it can be.
And enjoy writing that first draft because that's always the fun part.
-------------------------------
Write Any Book in 28 Days or Less.
Laid out in an easy to follow style and suitable for writing fiction and non-fiction. Just follow the course, working just one hour a day, and in less than a month, you’ll have your manuscript written.
http://ruthiswriting.com/links/writequickly.html
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