This post pertains to mostly NaNoWriMo works, but I guess it could apply to any first draft.
My mantra is “I’m writing as fast as I can!” and during November NaNoWriMo attempts where almost all my first drafts originate, that’s exactly what happens: I write as fast as I can possibly write. It’s essential if you want to make 50,000 words in 30 days or less. I will make time for at least 45 minutes, I wish for an hour, but I sometimes only have 20-30 minutes to get 1,667 words down.
When I’m in Speed Mode, I typically do not put in descriptors. I don’t labor over sentences, their structure, pretty prose, or anything else. I don’t put in “tags” (he said, she said). I see my scenes in my head, very much like like watching a movie, and while I’m writing quickly, I want to spew it all out before I forget what I’m doing and where I’m going. I’m terrible at dialogue anyway, and writing dialogue in this manner forces me to complete the task. (Then I read it over, out loud, but that’s another part of editing.)
Compare this to my first couple of NaNoWriMo attempts (Finding Cadence, Virtually Yours) where I belabored every move I made. If a person has time, maybe that works. In all my life, I rarely have “spare” time – I have to make it, and when I make it, I must use it wisely. It took two and a half years to finish the rough draft of Finding Cadence (two NaNos and then some). Sometimes I spent days on a paragraph, which is not a bad thing, but get the story down first! I ended up with with 75,000 more words than I needed, mostly because I was flummoxed by my sentences. Believe me, cutting is worse than the alternative!
The alternative? Icing the cake.
You have a cake (or a story). The bones of it are there. It’s a good cake. It’s tasty. But that’s all there is, C A K E. It’s dry. It needs something.
I noticed first off in re-reads that my tags were missing. You don’t need them in every sentence with two people speaking to each other, but definitely you need them with three or more, otherwise you’ll get lost. Once the tags are in, I noticed that I was missing the tone and setting of the conversations. Body language, facial expressions, the situation of the room. Yes, you know what’s going on with your story, it’s in your head, but unless you’re very concise, your readers won’t have a clue. (I remember when my editor read my first draft of Virtually Yours, he saw my characters as different people than what I saw. That’s because I didn’t describe them very well.)
After inserting tags, I usually run my manuscript through a word counter, like SmartEdit, using a list of overused words and/or phrases. You can find lists of them online, like this one. I’ve also picked up many lists from the San Francisco Writers Conference workshops. If you don’t have or use SmartEdit, you can use your Find/Replace function on Word. I allow for a certain number of the same word (let’s say “important” – in Cadence it was “family”) but if I see I have several hundred (or thousand! yes, that’s happened!), I will think of an alternate word or phrase that can do the same job but differently.
This part of the editing is where you add the icing. THIS is where you work on sentences and paragraphs, shine them up, add descriptive prose. This is where you work on clarity. Where you add the pretty pink flowers.
Re-read once you’ve finished this part of editing. I’ll also make notes in my notebook, because as we know, I’m severely computer challenged. These written notes will contain the page numbers where I noted the anomaly. (I might change it later, or I might not.) If you can, read at least the dialogue out loud. It won’t be perfect, but when people speak, they rarely do so perfectly.
This draft won’t be ready for print, but it’ll be closer to the finished product.
