The Purposeful Prose Advice Column: Beyond the First Draft

Dear Purposeful Prose,

I’ve been working on my book for a few years now, giving it space and returning to it when I’m ready to write again. At this point, I feel as though I’ve written all I can write and that it is a full first draft. Now that I have a first draft, how do I move forward? What do I do next? Do I self-edit? Do I immediately go to an editor or beta readers?

This question is more common than you might think. The first draft can feel like solid stone, and since you’ve written it, these two facts are true at once. First of all, you know your story best. You know your characters, you know your progression, and you know the plot lines. While it’s possible you have an end goal for publishing, whether it’s querying or self-publishing, you might not have gotten that far yet. However, you do know the ins and outs of your own book.

Second, because you know your story best, you are extremely close to it. That isn’t a problem for some writers, but it’s important to understand how high the margin of error can be. Don’t feel pressured to choose your collaborator or collaborators immediately, but keep your own closeness to your story in mind. Because of this, many will advise that you also take time away from your work so that you can review it with fresh eyes. 

This brings to mind a correspondence from Charlotte Bronte to G. H. Lewes dated January 12, 1848: “When authors write best, or, at least, when they write most fluently, an influence seems to waken in them, which becomes their master–which will have its own way–putting out of view all behests but its own, dictating certain words, and insisting on their own being used, whether vehement or measured in their nature; new-molding characters, giving unthought-of turns of incidents, rejecting carefully elaborated old ideas, and suddenly creating and adopting new ones.”

While I cannot speak for Charlotte Bronte as to the full extent of her meaning, I can state what I take from it. When you are writing at your absolute best, understanding the best possible language to use at the best possible time, you will also have a trustworthy instinct for what your story needs. Bronte’s editor, George Smith, could probably speak more thoroughly on what it was like to work with such texts as Jane Eyre. However, it is known that she limited herself to one or two revisions at most.

I introduce this passage because while, on paper, revision is your closest next step, it isn’t easy when you have carved this language out of yourself. Indeed, there are authors who hold their writing so close to their chest that it is harder for them to collaborate with editors, beta readers, or communities they seek to create around their work.

When a part of my job description included evaluating writing passages for a hiring team, I encountered many writers who felt very strongly about their writing, not wanting to revise. The passages I evaluated were nonfiction with clear, cited sources and a bibliography. The sample also had to be written to the specifications of a provided outline. If a writer could do that, I would move them along to the next stage.

Upon opening the draft of a writer who had this assignment, I performed an initial read-through, making sure that every step was followed. There were no in-text citations, I didn’t see a bibliography, and the topic didn’t appear to have been researched at all. Additionally, when comparing the outline to what was written, I found that the writing didn’t follow the outline. 

My initial thought was that the writer might not have understood the instructions. So, I wrote out a message. I said that, while I did enjoy what they’d written, they hadn’t followed instructions. Their response was that they’d written from the heart, and they thought we’d appreciate something that was written from the heart more than something that was overly rigid. I’d have loved for this writer to have revised and done research, but again, this writer held their work close to their chest and was not hired by our organization. 

When you’ve written your first draft, again, you will be close to it. While Jane Eyre has been celebrated for a reason, if you rely so much on your own instincts that you do not approach your work with a critical eye or allow for collaboration when you seek it, it will be more difficult to revise and move forward with publishing. You don’t have to accept every idea, but allow yourself to consider that your original ideas might need a new visitor, that your characters might need to be more consistent, that the implications you’ve made through your words might not be what you meant. 

The influence who decides those changes are worthy of being made is still you. While you can immediately source editors or beta readers (there’s nothing wrong with that), I do recommend going through your text and making initial revisions that you feel you need. Then, when you do source your collaborator(s), identify areas of your writing that you feel you want to improve (character arcs, tone, conflict structure, etc.). That’s a great way to open dialogue to anyone you choose to work with on your writing!

If you have a writing or editing-focused question, I would be more than happy to dedicate a post to you. Contact us with any questions you might have or to schedule a free consultation with yours truly!

All submissions will remain anonymous unless you explicitly request for me to include your name.