Update – Novel Draft : BIG Edits

What’s your opinion of first drafts?

Back in October 2012 I hand-wrote my version of the Na No Wri novel.  Here’s the past posts if you are interested in knowing more.  (My Version of Na No Wri Mo; NaNoWri Week 1; NaNoWri Week 2; NaNoWri Week 3; NaNoWri Week 4;
NaNoWri Made Goal; NaNoWri Characters ).

As an update, the main protagonist is a seven-year old girl and the story centers on the adventures of a particular summer, and some life-changing events.  Not sure yet if this is a coming-of-age story, adventure story, family saga……………………..

Only recently did I finally finish typing the handwritten, can’t-exactly-call-it-a-manuscript, draft.  Let the editing begin!!  But where to start?

Evaluate the Typed Mess:  Part story, part notes,  some research, opening written on 24th day, character names kept changing…and…and…I’m thinking my way through this process.

Begin with Big Edits:
1.  First I went chapter by chapter and separated out what was story and what was not.  The NOT included notes, research, plot ideas for other places, thread ideas, background etc.  Whatever was not specifically “story”, I moved to another file.

2.  Moved chapters around.  Remember I said that I wrote the opening on the 24th day, well that chapter now moved to the beginning.  I began to see the manuscript as beginning, middle and end, or Set-up, Heat-up, and End-up.   I moved chapters around accordingly.

3.  To Do:  Still need to decide on characters’ names and then do Search & Replace.

4.  To Do:  I need to do another sweep of the chapter-flow, reading and looking more closely at the manuscript-flow, and tightening the story-flow up.  Move things around again.

5. To Do:  Some chapters are all narration, so another Big Edit would be to rewrite in scene.

6.  To Do:  Continue working on character profiles.

There may be more big edits before I move to small ones like word choice, correcting tenses, but that will be another post.

I will admit that the manuscript first draft is Crap, Shit, and all those other things I’ve read about first drafts.  I can’t remember who said it, but “all the writing is in the re-writing”.  I have a lot of work ahead of me before I can say this is a novel and an even longer time before I would consider sharing it.  More updates to follow.