So, you’ve written down your story and now want to know how to start editing your first draft? You’ve come to the right place!
How to start editing your first draft
First of all, it depends on how clean your first draft is. Most people don’t write a very clean first draft—especially if they’re writing a book for the first time, which is most likely you! The more books you write, the better a writer you’ll become and the better your first drafts will be.
In this post, I will give you a couple of tips on how to start editing your first draft, but at the end of the day, your process is about what works for you. Try some of these and see if they help you. Keep trying until you create a strategy that is aligned for you.
Create a Reverse Outline
A reverse outline is an outline you create after writing the book. If you’re a plotter, like I am, you also make an outline before you write. This is the outline we’re going to adjust. If you’re a pantser—someone that creates the story as they write it (without an outline)—this will also work for you! If you want to make your second draft better, you’ll have to get the story right.
After I finish the first draft, I go back to my outline and first edit that based on everything that I wrote and anything that changed during the writing process. Because even though I create an outline, I regularly go off script. My characters decide to do something else (I didn’t think about in advance), or my world throws something to my characters that they didn’t expect. I finetune the reverse outline to the point that the story is where I want it to be, and then I start editing the story based on that new outline! Although—not so fast. There are some other things I take into consideration…
Character Development and Worldbuilding
I also take a look at character development and worldbuilding. This is important for your story to become better.
First, your character should go through some sort of character development. Why? Because a character who starts off in the same place of the story where they end up is boooooring. We want to read about the person that overcomes—that perseveres—gets stronger. Read more on this in the 3-act story structure series.
Secondly, I think about worldbuilding. How does the political system work? The magic system? What are the specifics? The timelines? The names of several things? If you get all of these things thought out and all the facts straight, the next draft will improve a lot—both in consistency and depth.
Comb through the manuscript
Someone once described editing the first draft as combing through your hair after you’ve washed it. If you start from the roots, you comb the tangles further down. It starts piling up, becoming worse, before you untangle all of it. It’s the same with a first draft. With the help of your reverse outline, you start from the beginning and edit the text. You move through the rest of the book, combing through the plot until you’re through.
This will leave you with a much-improved manuscript at the end of the first edit!
I hope you now know how to start editing your first draft. Good luck 🙂
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Lots of Love,
Britt
