Let's assume that you've followed my advice from yesterday and gotten some distance from your first draft (be it Nano-related or not). Or, alternatively, maybe you've got a deadline coming up or perhaps you want to keep striking while the iron is hot and you're hooked on writing.
Whatever the reason, you're ready to start editing.
Just as there are many different ways to prep, outline and to write, there are many different ways to edit.
I think that your first read depends on how strong you feel your first draft is. I'm going to be using my 2014 Nanonovel as my case study, so we're going to assume that you think your first draft is more like Draft 0 rather than Draft 1 !
So, print that sucker off if you like (I do) or bring it up on the monitor.
Grab some pens and paper or index cards - or bring up a second document on your computer.
What we're going to do first is....
SCENE BREAKDOWN
Whether you outlined or not, odds are that your draft veered off book.
I want you to read your manuscript and write down some notes about every scene. The goal is to have a document that gives us all the key information about the book you already have - so that you can make notes about what you need to change, add, remove to make your story the best story it can be. Inevitably there will be some scenes that lack purpose or you'll realize that you under-utilised a character or that you dropped a subplot part way and need to shore things up.
For each scene, you want to know exactly what is happening.
Ideally, you can write a brief sentence describing the action -
In the town hall, Main Character(MC) accuses Secondary Character One(SC1) of cheating at poker championship, but the argument is interrupted by goblin attack.
This gives the bare bones of the scene, including the goal of the characters, and the conflict.
I'd also add a quick note about important characters who appear in the scene, e.g.:
MC
SC1
Goblin King
And then I'd include any additional thoughts I have as I read. I'm not worried about the quality of the writing at this point, but entirely about the 'big picture' so plot, character and setting.
What I should end up with is a new outline of my novel, one that matches what I have on paper rather than the ideal outline I may or may not have had before I wrote.
If you did follow an outline pretty closely, it's completely fine to start with that and just make the changes to reflect what you do have.
Take your time getting this part done. This is when you're going to really learn what you have on your hands. You'll find a lot of crap, and, hopefully, some happy surprises.
Remember - at the end of this process, you want an outline that describes what you have, scene by scene.
The next step will be identifying the weaknesses and deciding what to do about them, which is exciting because this is when we'll make a map for the big renovations that are going to happen!
In a post-NaNoWriMo world, people react differently. Some want to get working on the next phase, editing away. Others want to never look at their Nano story again. Some people fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
I usually tend to want to put the story away, but this year I see something in my NaNoWriMo story that I kind of like.
Not the prose, mind you, or the overall plot arc. But there's a glimmer of something there that I want to play with, so I will be editing this one.
Now, before I begin editing, I am putting the story away. Not for long - maybe a week? I don't love my novel already, I haven't developed an attachment to it, so I don't feel the need to put it away for longer.
If you love your novel, if you cannot look at your writing with an attempt at objectivity - put it away until January. Let it rest, let it collect some dust.
Distance will make it easier for you to see the flaws. You won't remember the details as well, so it'l be easier to see where you forgot to mention something or didn't explain something as clearly as you should.
Distance will mean each carefully crafted - or hastily scrawled - sentence isn't so near and dear to your heart. You'll be able to ruthlessly cut out that gorgeous turn of phrase that really ruins the rhythm of that fight scene. You'll be able to see the run-on sentences, the half-formed sentences, the redundant ones, the unclear ones.
Ideally, by the time you come back to the story, it'll feel almost like someone else's. If you start reading, and you keep saying to yourself, "Whoa, I don't remember this at all!" then you've waited long enough. If you start reading and you say, "Huh, this part here isn't so bad, and that part there is just as good as I remember," well, that's cool too. But if you pick it up and say, "I love everything about this beautiful off-spring of my creativity and determination. Each word is golden, each moment pitch-perfect and how on Earth can anyone expect me to alter anything when I laboured so hard to bring it into this world in the first place?"... well, then you need to put that baby back on the shelf and work on something else for a little while.
Yes, it's okay to love your first draft. Of course it is. You worked hard to produce that manuscript. But the next phase, editing, is going to prepare it for other readers, people who will be more critical and less forgiving of its flaws. This means you need to be able to to look critically at your draft, identify its strengths and shore up its weaknesses. Distance will make this process slightly less painful.
