Once More unto the Breach

Your second draft will feel different from the first. Instead of a blank page, you’ll have an entire story to elevate to its next level.

As always, the specifics of the work depend on you. My personal approach is to keep my outline open for quick reference and take it point by point. Does the original chapter fit the new mold? If not, what does it need to gain or lose? A few sentences? A few paragraphs? Does it need a full revamp? Whether you follow my lead or one of your own design, add a few blank lines of separation above the first-draft writing and retell the story of that chapter.

On this second trip through your story’s plot, take in the scenery. How did Character A say that line of dialogue you’re so proud of? What was their posture and expression? How did Character B react? Filler details, such as colors or sensory description (touch, feel, taste, hear, see), are nice and important elements of any scene, but most of those will be forgotten within a few paragraphs. Instead of bloating your story with that type of detail, focus on what will live longer in a reader’s mind.

What’s Happening?

Your outline serves as a road map of your story’s plot, a highway connecting its first word to the last. In contrast, your first draft likely resembles a heart monitor—tall and deep plunges diverging from a flat line. Imagine driving from New York to San Francisco but first heading to Charlotte, NC, then up to Detroit, MI. Back down to Biloxi, MS. Up to Chicago, IL. Now, imagine telling someone else to take that route. The first detour will lose most readers, any stragglers falling off well before they’ve bounced out of Texas.

In terms of plot, the goal of your second draft is to ensure that every scene is a step toward the story’s conclusion. Every chapter, paragraph, and word needs to pull its weight. Sometimes, this will mean cutting full pages that don’t match the outline. Other times, you’ll need new scenes. Time and experience will help you learn the difference, but a good indicator of a scene that needs to be fleshed out is a major plot point described in a paragraph (told) instead of a scene (shown). Remember, scenes are built from action and dialogue, so every key moment of your story needs to be expressed in one of those ways. But don’t use scenes to build trivial details. If the first time two characters met has nothing to do with the plot, don’t give it a full flashback. However, an argument that separates them when they need each other most might well be worth a shout-by-shout description.

Who Are These People Anyway?

Character development is another crucial focus for your second draft. Without a fully realized character behind every clever line of dialogue and jaw-dropping revelation, those things will fall flat. Each needs their own mold to motivate them through the plot points—how and why they deliver their lines and do the things they do.

Again, the trivial details—hair color, eye color, and wardrobe—don’t matter so much. If you can provide those without overloading a sentence, go for it, but keep in mind that the effort put into physical descriptions is mostly wasted. Your readers will remember them wrong, reconciling the person you created with the one they imagined.

Your characters’ inner workings matter more. How did they become the people in your story? I don’t mean some cool anecdote or personal philosophy that is coincidentally also yours. As with the plot, you need scene-level elements to stick these characters in your reader’s head.

Dialogue and flashbacks are great for character development but also potential pitfalls. Unless an extended scene of dialogue is essential, steer clear of long-winded speeches that tell readers everything they need to know about a character. In the same way, a memory that doesn’t advance the plot doesn’t deserve a four-page scene.

Stick to your outline, your road map. When a character does something, ask yourself why and whether why matters. Then look for ways to present that information to your reader.

Where the Hell Are We?

Setting can be the trickiest part of a story to get right. Some stories dive so deep into where they take place, the details become as important as the characters. At the opposite end of the spectrum, without building the details of place, you end up with characters performing their roles in an empty void. Between those extremes is a normal story world—not necessarily the focus of any scene, but not neglected either.

When a character walks into a room and sits down, they interact with the scenery. If they sit beside a stranger and strike up a conversation, the focus shifts to dialogue. If they sit beside a friend, backstory might be added to the mix. Notice how, the more complicated the scene, the less the scenery matters. Sitting alone, a character might scan the room, allowing space for details about the structure and décor. Interacting with a stranger, their attention will stray less, but breaks in the conversation allow for brief, grounding details (a sip of a drink or watching a kid play in the park). When talking to someone they’ve known a long time, they’ll likely focus more on the conversation.

Invented worlds make diving deep into the scenery tempting. You spent so much time dreaming up all those cool details, you’re eager to show them off. Seven moons! Eight species of sentient beings! A magic system unlike anything ever written! As exciting as those details seem, they get overwhelming or, worse yet, boring when thrown at a reader without reason or appropriate timing. As you write your second draft, look for places where those descriptions can be added seamlessly into scenes.

The Tortoise and the Hare

The particular sequence of slow- and fast-paced scenes is up to you and part of how you’ll differentiate yourself from other authors. But the implementation is simple: detail-heavy paragraphs slow a story down and dialogue- or action-heavy paragraphs speed it up. Too many consecutive slow paragraphs will bore your reader. Too many fast ones will rob them of the context necessary to enjoy the story as you intended.

Consider your current work, which I’m assuming you have if you’ve read this far. Dive deep past the cool or moving climax you’ve written or have in mind. Look at your first chapter. My guess is it starts in one of two ways: either a solid wall of descriptive text that shows off exactly how creative you can be or a middle-of-the-scene introduction of a character so cool your reader will have no choice but to keep reading. Maybe your favorite book does that exact thing and is a national bestseller written by a name everyone’s heard.

Just because a rule is breakable—and most literary ones are—doesn’t mean it can always be broken. Time and practice will get you to a level where you have a general understanding of which ones you break well and which will make readers stop reading. As you work on your second draft, err towards the middle. If your first chapter consists of more detail than action, pick up the pace by building all those proud details into an actual scene. At the opposite end of the spectrum, your hero tossing out one-liners in the middle of a fight could use a little more introduction to make readers care.

Why, who, and where are the questions you’ll need to ask yourself for every scene. The rhythm of their pacing is your novel’s heartbeat. As with all people, real or fictional, that constant thump defines our lives. When it becomes irregular, we notice. So do doctors and readers. As you rewrite, pay attention to your distinct pattern. All action and no setup is constant noise. All setup and no action is silence.

That’s all for now. In my next post, I’ll talk specifics of adding new scenes to your second-draft story. Until then, keep writing!