Second Drafts
August 15, 2025
For the second time, I have written a complete first draft of a novel.
My first novel was a project I had worked on for four years, finishing in December of 2022. It was strictly character-driven, bildungsroman in nature, and didn't revolve around a central plot. When I finished the first draft, I had it printed and I purchased a few red pens, preparing to edit and begin my second draft shortly after.
Skipping forward a bit, I began writing a second novel sometime in the spring of 2023. This story was much more plot-driven, loosely based on a personal experience I had and wanted to explore as a mental exercise in novelization. I finished the first draft of this novel just last month. Once again, I printed the novel out, preparing for self edits and to soon begin my second draft.
I've come to the realization that I don't know how to approach second drafts.
I didn't take any creative writing courses in college, nor in high school. My approach to fiction writing has always been similar to my nonfiction writing—a style I have built my career around—and rely on my countless hours of reading fiction to help me through. I've started to take a step back from looking at the words on the page and instead read and learn what makes a great novel great. More importantly, I've started to find advice on how to approach second drafts.
Up to just a few weeks ago, I thought second drafts were very similar to the first, but with more consistent and cleaner language. This has turned out to be incredibly incorrect. Instead, I've started to take a step back and look at my novel from a broader lens, with this second draft going to be about structure. Are my chapters in the correct order? Is the climax coming too early? Is this following any form of narrative structure? In future drafts, I can look at how my characters themselves are developed, what makes them different from each other, etc...
This focus on word choice has plagued my writing for years. It wasn't until I heard a great piece of advice on writing that I was even able to finish my first draft: the first draft is all about telling yourself the story; get it out of your head. This is what helped me write a novel in two years instead of four like my first. Now, I need to take more advice on second drafts so I can hopefully move on and not have a stack of first drafts in ten years from now.