You Should Rewrite Your Book — Why the Second Draft ALWAYS Improves Your Writing
So, you’ve finished the first draft of your book. That’s great, and you should be proud. But don’t crack open the champaign just yet—there’s still much to be done.
I’ve harped time and time again on the importance of rewriting and how it is necessary to extract the highest quality from your writing. A lot of people resist the idea of rewriting—I mean, you just spent months or years writing your, why would you start over? That sounds like a special form of masochism.
But that’s not the whole story. Rewriting isn’t starting over, it’s approaching a story you’ve practiced with a solid framework on paper. First drafts tend to have a scattered element to them, things happen as you think of them. But in the rewrite, you’ve already thought of those things, and you can sow the seeds of narrative with intent and tact you lacked the first go round.
I love rewriting. It’s the part of the writing process where I watch my janky first draft refine into a competent story with artistic use of language and clearly defined themes and motifs. Even better, this is usually when the characters settle into their voices, instead of borrowing yours.
My goal with this blog post is to show you the power of rewriting at work through real examples of my current rewriting project. I want to show you it’s a beneficial exercise with only positive outcomes. There’s no fear of the blank page, you can write a lot faster, and you will learn a lot in the process.
Check out the companion video
Why is the Second Draft Important?⌗
But why is writing a second draft so essential? Well, Hemingway’s answer is simple: the first draft of anything is shit. Iteration is the greatest tool at the writer’s disposal. When we speak, we don’t have the opportunity to review if the words we chose are clearly communicating our intended message. With writing, we have this power in spades.
As I said, first drafts tend to be riddled with this “and then this happened and then this” structure that’s the result of generating ideas as we write. This is especially true for writers who work without outlines.
It’s definitely true for me—I don’t outline, but I do write short blerbs about what I want to happen in sections of chapters of my book. Even with this guidance, I find the narrative surprises me as I write—usually in the form of a new fork in the road screaming: “and then the wizard from this other book shows up and…”
In addition to the “and then” problem, is the inevitability of rushed, sloppy writing. It’s in every first draft because that’s the nature of first drafts.
The point of a first draft is generate concepts and turn those concepts into something tangible that can be iterated upon—not to create a finished product.
The purpose of the second draft, which doesn’t have to take the form of rewriting (but should), is to iron out all of the structural issues and narrative inconsistencies that arise during the first draft. Since you’ve had practice and your referring to tangible writing rather than incorporeal ideas, you can typically rewrite your story faster and with more intention.
There has never been a time where I’ve felt my rewrite was in worse shape than the first draft. There have been times when I needed to rewrite something a few times, but the process has always ended with a better piece of writing and a lesson learned.
My Second Draft Project⌗
In a previous YouTube video, I went over the production history of my first book What Lies Below (coming out November 11 by the by, wink wink). That one was too long in the tooth to show you the second draft, but thankfully I just finished the first draft of my second book, Ashen Rider. I’m about a third of the way through the second draft, and it’s really going a lot smoother.
The first draft took about two years to complete. It’s a short book, but it’s trying to a lot with little white space. I found the blank page extremely intimidating while working on it. It spent a lot of time in a conceptual stage too—it started out as a Dungeons and Dragons adventure from my tabletop design days, and then it turned into a series of short stories I wrote and rewrote several times. What is now Part One as a novel has existed in various configurations throughout its lifespan.
The natural consequence of drafting a book over such a long period is that the earlier chapters lack the polish and skill of the later chapters. This is in part of because of the rapid growth I experienced during school. But mostly it’s because I didn’t have full understanding of the plot, the world, or the characters until after I finished.
All of these things are solved during the rewrite.
The Rewriting Process⌗
How should you approach a rewrite project? Everyone’s process will look different, but I’ll show you mine to inform how you approach your project.
After finishing the draft, I took two weeks away from it and work other projects. This helped to rest my mind so I could approach it again with a fresh perspective in the rewrite. Don’t sleep on rest and time away, our brains are like our muscles, you need to wear it down, then let it rest so it heals back stronger.
Once I had rested, I was excited to get back to work. From there, I opened up blank documents in an adjacent window to the original chapter. I took it a chapter at a time, working in reading order. While I was rewriting, I was looking out for inconsistencies in the plot and world building, and awkward sentences that would benefit from rephrasing (which is nearly all of them). This is also when I do most of my restructuring and rearranging of paragraphs and sentences—we’re already performing open heart surgery, might as well fix a punctured lung while we’re here.
Once the chapter is finished, I move the old document out of the working folder into an archive, so I can air out my dirty laundry for other’s education. So let’s see how the intro to chapter one faired after a rewrite.
Practical Examples of Rewriting at Work⌗
Example 1: Ashen Rider, Chapter One⌗
The following passage is an excerpt from Chapter One of the first draft of Ashen Rider:
At the end of the great bridge that spans the Screaming Fields are the black doors to Morgana’s Hall, where the Dread Angel herself sits upon the Scarlet Chair. Where She in Her infinite glory watches over Her people: those damned to eternal suffering and those who were given no other choice. Standing before the threshold I can feel the pulse, an alien pervasion that poisons the land and the soil. It was I, dear reader, who entered these halls as a herald of what was to come. It was I, dear reader, who dreamt of Her impending downfall.
I should tell you; I did not make this trek half-heartedly. I should tell you I was anything but fearless. For the majesty of the Dread Angel is one of most overwhelming splendor. Her visage is one that would rot out the eyes of any mortal man, and surely would have meant my own blindness were I not already so.
I came to Her hall as a messenger, to bring tidings and warning. To deliver a missive which was not to be taken lightly. Do not be fooled, I did not come out of duty or piety. Rather, I made this dire journey out of self-interest and simple curiosity. Morgana did not move from her perch as I stood before Her. Weary from travel and leaning on my staff, I wiped my nose with a handkerchief as I worked up the courage to speak. The air was redolent, distinct notes of turmeric and sage floated up from the kitchens. However, the underlying stench of decay could not be masked. This was the realm of the damned, after all, and I was wary about the possibility of joining their ranks.
This was a good basis for the concept I was after, but when I wrote this I wasn’t sure who the narrator was or why he was doing what he was doing. It’s also pretty wordy and incoherent in some places. Every idea flows and interrupts the others, which it makes for a confusing read. Not a good showing to capture curious prospective readers.
This is what the passage looks like after a rewrite:
The black doors to Morgana’s court stand at the end of a bridge spanning the length of the Screaming Fields. Inside the keep, looming on the highest peak of the Vale Betwixt, the Goddess Corrupted sits upon her accursed throne, the Scarlet Chair, which has remained in the keep’s narthex long before she laid claim to it. In her infinite glory, the Goddess watched over her people: those damned to eternal suffering—not because of the weight of their sins, but because they were given no other choice.
The Goddess Corrupted no longer adjudicates—not since the day she first sat upon the Chair.
Standing before her threshold, I felt that pulse I had only before known in dreams; an alien pervasion poisoning the land and the soil. It was I, dear reader, who entered those halls as herald of the Dread Angel’s doom. I should tell you I did not make this trek half-heartedly. I should tell you I was anything but fearless. The majesty of the Goddess Corrupted is one of overwhelming splendor. Her visage might rot out the eyes of a mortal man, surely it might have meant my own blindness, were I not already afflicted.
I came to her court as a messenger. I sought only to deliver tidings and fair warning. My missive was not one to be taken lightly, but I did not expect the Goddess to pay my words heed. All for the better, I say—my mission was a gamble and if I my words carried weight, likely I would be writing a different tale altogther.
Do not be fooled; I did not seek out the Dread Angel out of piety or a sense of duty. I made the dire journey out of self-interest and simple curiosity. Morgana did not move from her throne as I approached. Nor did it offend her as pulled a handkerchief to wipe nose. Weary from travel, I leaned on my staff to catch my breath—to work up the courage to address the custodian of life and death.
Redolent air wafted from the kitchens, distinct notes of turmeric and sage decorating the room, reminding me of home—such a strange a sensation to feel anywhere in Pandemonium, in hell. Beneath the comforting aroma, however, lurked the musty stench of rot and decay. I was in the realm of the damned, after all, and I was wary she might seek to add my soul to her collection.
The three paragraphs of the first draft were clearly doing too much, so in the rewrite I focused on spending more time setting the scene and establishing the voice of the narrator. So the reader has time to breathe, I partitioned the following concepts: The narrator’s arrival at Morgana’s keep, his reason for being there, who Morgana is, what it feels like to be in her domain, and the narrator’s fatigue from journeying across the entirety of hell.
While it came out with a higher word count, the information is presented logically, rather than at the whim and order of my thoughts. Consequently, the prose is clearer and the strangeness of the setting is more easily understood.
Of course, rewriting is not a substitute for editing, so there are still issues present in the rewritten text, but these tend to be superficial and more easily addressed in editing than the blunders of the first draft.
Ashen Rider is strange tale—in addition to an unconventional setting (that being my secondary world’s version of Hell), it also uses multiple style of narration because it’s written like a historical compilation of writings from different authors. The most challenging author is the oneiromancer because he narrates his dreams, which consist of other people’s experiences in the first and third person dependent on the power of his magic and the accessibility of their inner thoughts. That kind of complexity does not show through in a first draft—the more outside the box you go, the more you need to police it in revision.
Example 2: Ashen Rider, Chapter 2⌗
The second primary character’s parts are written in a more traditional third-person omniscient. This can also get messy, just in general, but also because separating the different voices is a tall order during the first draft.
Here’s the first draft of Kateryna’s introduction:
Working Monrovia’s docks was the worst task one could hope for. Hours toiling in the hail and rain, suppurating muck that bulged between the deck planks. There was no greater punishment than suffering through a double shift on the platforms, subjected to the nauseating sway of those wobbling, creaking poles. Kateryna stood vigil in the downpour watching for serpents and sharks, vile undead apparitions which only seemed to make their presence known when she was the one on duty. She had been selected for the fourth day in a row and was beginning to wonder if it was more than bad luck causing her name to continuously turn up from the bowl.
A blind old man giggled haplessly as he tacked on the welds to the newly installed extensions – a task that took equal parts wizardry and madness to complete with even a degree of competence. He called himself Fulcrum, he turned up out of nowhere and had volunteered to weld every day since he has been damned to exist under Morgana’s watch; a gaze that spreads like contagion to every drop of rain that torments the village of Monrovia most of every day.
“It’s getting worse,” Kateryna said, holding her canvas hood tight to her face. “How far up is the slurry from last month?”
“Maybe two meters,” Fulcrum said, leveraging a gnarled wand made from the deadwood of a sycamore. The veins in his hand were inclined to burst from the current of potential he maintained for hours at a time. “Don’t bother me none! I need the work; I crave the work!”
This, again, is wordy. The details and events aren’t clearly laid out. The blind, old man giggling feels like he’s there because I arbitrarily decided it would be a cool mirror to the previous chapter (which is exactly what happened).
Now, let’s look at the rewritten passage:
Working the docks was probably the worst job in the whole bloody town. Hours spent toiling in ceaseless hail and rain, suppurating muck bulging between floor planks; truly there was no greater hell in the whole of the underworld than dock duty. Somehow, Kateryna’s name turned up in the bowl, time and time again. She stopped arguing the drawings after a month. A year or more had gone by—she guessed, it was hard to tell—since she bothered to attend the drawings. Kateryna stood vigil in the downpour, watching for wayward serpents or sharks. Such creatures rarely surfaced to feed, but they appeared often enough to warrant a steady stream of begrudging, and unpaid, employment. You would think so many months on dock duty might mean you would grow accustomed to it. But Kateryna never got used to the nauseating sway of the poles, holding the town above the encroaching waves by a razor’s edge.
Behind her, Fulcrum giggled haplessly as he tacked on the welds to the new extensions—a task requiring equal parts ingenuity and madness. Parts of the town were beginning to flood when the old coot arrived from thin air; the other welder had not the reserves of potential to keep up spells to match the demand, and then he succumbed to the pestilence. Fulcrum’s sudden appearance, his earnest request to work as the new welder, was something of a miracle.
The old man perplexed Kateryna—he seemed to enjoy his twisted existence beneath Morgana’s eternal watch. Who knows how terrible things are down below… maybe this is a good as it gets. The thought sent ripples down her spine.
“The storms are getting worse…” Kateryna mused, pulling her hood tight to her face as the rain fell harder. “How far has the level risen since last month?”
“Two meters, give or take,” Fulcrum called over his shoulder, hunched over an access hatch. He held a gnarled wand hewn from a branch of a sycamore. The veins in his hand bulged from the immense current of sorcery needed to complete the repair. “Ain’t no matter, I crave a challenge!”
Again, I’ve partitioned separate concepts into their own paragraphs for clarity. The rewrite establishes a more concrete scene, which is important because what they’re doing is strange and not naturally intuited by a reader. I altered Fulcrum’s presentation because my plan for his character changed drastically. In the first draft he was clearly mad. In the rewrite, Kateryna believes him to be mad due to his enthusiasm.
Conclusion⌗
I hope this exercise has provided a bit more context on the writing process, and how to improve your writing. Remember that rewriting is never a waste of time: at worst you practice writing and learn something. At best: you end with higher quality writing and better understanding of your work.
The point of this channel is to help you get the most of out of your writing. Writing is time consuming and challenging, and so your work deserves your special attention and extra effort to make it the best version of itself possible.
Sincerely, James