Writing the second draft

The first draft is the easy one. It's the rough, unpolished blob a writer pushes out in a manic frenzy. It's the tentative opening act.

Many finish it in three months, the time Stephen King recommends in his Twenty Rules for Writers. Some complete it in one. Thousands of prolific scribes, participants in NaNoWriMo, are trying to do so now. Few, I dare say, will give as much thought to the second draft.

I do. I do because the second draft, the first revision, is where writers turn a jumble into a story. It's where we find glaring errors, embarrassing inconsistencies, and plot holes a reader could drive a truck through.

The second draft is also where we read our story with fresh eyes and sometimes rediscover it. It's where characters and plot lines often look different than when we created them three months earlier.

Later drafts are also important. The third is where I fine-tune the prose, enhance description, and incorporate suggestions offered by my editor and beta readers. The fourth is the final upgrade, the detailing before the new car leaves the lot. All are vital steps in the process.

This week, I began revising Sea Spray, the third novel in the Time Box series and my eighteenth overall. I hope to finish the second draft by Thanksgiving and publish the book itself no later than February 1.