5 Tips for the SECOND DRAFT SLUMP (aka editing your book's first draft when you don't feel like it)

hey guys we've just finished nanowrimo it is time for well it might be time to keep writing for a little bit because not every novel is 50 000 words but eventually pretty soon for a lot of us it's going to be time to start editing that first draft and so i want to talk about how i edit the first draft and something that i like to call the second draft slump if you've heard of it if you know what i'm talking about give this video a thumbs up subscribe while you're there but i personally i i know that editing is tricky because just like with writing we all edit very differently there's no one right way remember to take it or leave it depending on if it works for you but i just wanted to share five tips that have really helped me as i go into editing for the first time as you go into editing land you may never have been there before or you may have been there many times but either way i hope this is helpful for you and for me personally i have two times in the writing process where i really really struggle there are a lot of times that writing is hard don't get me wrong like pretty much the whole process is difficult but there are two specific times in the writing of a book the entire process that really really get me personally and i don't know if you'll relate to this or not but for me there's two times where i almost can't get myself to go back to writing if you know what i mean and so the first one well one of them is after i've worked with beta readers because usually there's so so so much good feedback and it's good it's helpful it's what i need to know but it's just an overwhelming massive amount of stuff that i know i need to fix and so it's sort of i don't know like a decision paralysis or just a this is too overwhelming there's too much to do i can't possibly do it and it's that perfectionism or i don't know exactly what the word is but basically it's too overwhelming and i just stop and i kind of come to a screeching halt in my writing and the other place the second time that i have that feeling and it's almost exactly the same is when it comes to the second draft when i have just finished writing a first draft or recently ish finished writing that first draft maybe a month ago whatever the case may be and i'm coming back for the very first round of edits that second draft slump it is so so overwhelming once you've had enough time to process and step away and you come back and look at your book and that first draft just so you know every first draft is usually a dumpster fire it's usually a pretty big mess and it depends on like how much you plot versus pants it could be less of a mess or it could be a complete nonsense kind of situation but either way it's not perfect and you can see all the flaws at least i can let me know if you agree in the comments because i don't think this is just me and so i want to go into again five things that have helped me get through that second draft slump and start editing the first draft all right my first tip is gonna sound a little strange um because you wouldn't think it would be helpful but it's mentally it's a mental game i think and it really helps me which is to save your novel your manuscript whatever you want to call it as a new document so for example um i like to do something where i do one point and then the name of the book and then two point in the name of the book or call it second draft call it third draft whatever you want to call it save a new document so that you still have your first draft somewhere that you could go back to the reason this works is because at least for me i always worry that if i delete something what if i wanted it what if it ended up being the most amazing thing ever it usually isn't if you delete it it's usually for a reason but it's that mental thing of like i can't delete this because then it's gone forever but if you save it as a new draft you can do whatever you want because you still have the old draft you can come back to it if you need to it's still there you haven't lost anything so for me this first step helps me to feel like i'm not losing anything as i go to do the hard process of deleting stuff which is what you got to do my second tip is to create a goal with a deadline just like you had with nanowrimo you need to have something that you're aiming towards you need to know whether it's page count or how many chapters you get through per week maybe i don't know it's going to look really different and you're going to have to probably tweak it especially if it's your first time because you probably won't know exactly how much you can accomplish like for example um i used to think that i could edit i don't know 20 40 50 pages in a day during the first round of edits but no no if you have this kind of goal just like with nanowrimo then you're able to break it down into what you actually have to do each day so for example if you have 300 pages in your book i don't know just giving you an example and you want to finish that editing goal in maybe 30 days then you have to break it down what is that 10 pages a day i think my math is right 10 pages a day that's fairly reasonable it's pretty intense it's about as intense as nanowrimo just being real with you guys that's a lot of work so you may want to do something else like editing is harder than drafting in my opinion this is just my opinion but it is way harder for me and so i might actually make a 60 day editing goal and try to do five pages a day or something like that and again just like with nanowrimo you're not actually going to do the writing slash the editing every single day or at least most of us aren't because there's so much going on there's holidays you know if you're watching this later in the year there's always something that is going to get in the way that leads to my third tip which is to include grace days or buffer days whatever you want to call them just like with nanowrimo where we wanted to we knew that there was the holiday we knew that there were maybe weekends we couldn't write or days during the week we couldn't write same thing is going to be true going forward no matter what your plan is it's very very rare that we do it every single day if you include buffer days or grace days whatever you want to call it where it's your day off and maybe you use it to catch up or maybe you just use it to take the day off and you just need to have that break from the story or you have to have that break because you have something going on whatever the case may be building those in into your deadline can help you actually succeed and make your deadline and it can also be really nice to just have day off it's really hard to be creative every single day so give yourself some grace that's why i like to call it grace days my fourth tip is to focus on developmental edits i'm pretty sure i have a super old video on the different types of edits which i will link below if you want to check it out i'll try to link anything i have on editing in the description box below but i really am due for an explanation so really quick let me explain there are essentially three to four different types of edits depending on which editor you talk to and your preference really and how you'd like to define it but there is developmental which is the big picture stuff like um there's a huge plot hole um the character's super flat or the storyline doesn't work just the really overarching big stuff and then there is all the way at the other end of the editing spectrum proofreading which is just your nitty gritty typos the tiny tiny details the last minute stuff that you're just kind of catching at the tail end you know proofreading it's in the name it's you're proofing it you're making sure that it's ready to be published and in between those two really more clear edits is this kind of gray area that can sometimes be broken up into two or sometimes it's all called the same thing of line editing or copy editing and so i kind of see line editing as more style so you're going at sentence level you're going line by line that's why it's called line editing and you're looking at you know do i have too many sentences starting with the same like a verb like an ink verb or do i have them all saying he said this she did that he did this she did that over and over and over again that's like the style level or if there's clarity issues like i have no idea what the sentence says or maybe it's too long and it's an entire paragraph or something like that and then the copy editing leans more towards proofreading but it is a little more comprehensive and honestly copy editing is the biggest gray area for me so feel free to google it okay and you're gonna see a lot of different things out there the reason that there's a lot of overlap between all these different type of edits is because you can overlap all these different type of edits if you see a problem in the story whether it's you a beta reader sees it your editor sees it your critique partner sees it usually you want to address it right but when it comes to the very first draft editing this is why it's important to focus on developmental edits over all the other kinds of edits not that you won't occasionally do them if you see a glaring typo of course fix it but your focus your goal your intention when you're coming into edits should be on big picture stuff are the characters working is the story working the plot in the world the imagery you know do you have a good balance between narration scene setting dialogue etc those kinds of things are more important than worrying about tweaking the perfect sentence on you know page 32 because what if you delete page 32 what if as you're doing your developmental edits you realize that page 32 or maybe pages 10 through 50 all need to go in the trash well then you spent all that time editing you know that perfect sentence on page 32 to only then throw it in the garbage and that is the main reason why we try try try and i say try because i'm not perfect but we try to focus on developmental edits because if you do the other edits too soon you may end up throwing away your hard work and realizing that you didn't need it in the first place if you want a video on developmental edits let me know but let's keep going to my last tip number five this is probably the biggest one that helps me because again editing the first draft it's so overwhelming so so incredibly overwhelming and i have a strategy which i'll include as a bonus tip for how i work with my edits from beta readers which you could apply to this first round of edits if you would like but my fifth tip is to take it one edit at a time i really do mean this i mean you will get so overwhelmed if you try to hold in your mind all at once all the things that you have to do that is what makes it too overwhelming to move forward but if you instead just hold on to in your mind just one thing there's just this one edit i'm just focused on this plot hole i'll figure this out and then i'll move on to whatever is in the future but if you just live in that moment of that one edit and bonus tip the thing that i mentioned i do when i work with beta readers and that honestly can be very helpful anytime you're doing edits is that i like to personally write down all the things i want to edit because once it's out of my head i don't have to feel like i have to hold on to everything and keep it all up here all at once i can just get it out of my head onto paper and then once it's written out and i have it there i can take a deep breath and just focus on the one edit especially with beta readers there's a lot of information but also with first drafts you can go through your document write down all the big picture stuff once you have a really good you know notebook full of notes and ideas of what you need to edit then you can just pick one just grab that one edit pull it out put it in your brain focus on it don't worry about anything else and just do one edit at a time those are my five tips slash a bonus tip in there and i hope that they're helpful to you as you move into editing your novel possibly for the first time but even if it's not your first time i hope it was helpful give this video a thumbs up it helps my channel and also subscribe if you haven't check out my cute merch on my store this is a test sample but i will flash my store on the screen here so you can get a quick look at it and see if there's anything that interests you if you want to support my business thank you again for watching i really appreciate you guys i hope you have an amazing day i hope that editing your first draft goes well and i'll talk to you again very soon bye [Music] you

Channel: Bethany Atazadeh - YA Fantasy Author

Views: 10,853

Keywords: how to write a novel, bethany atazadeh, how to write a book, writing advice, authortube, authortuber, writing a fantasy novel, writing fantasy, editing the first draft, first draft, 1st draft, editing a novel tips, editing a novel, editing a book, editing a book for publishing, second draft novel, second draft writing, second draft tips, editing the second draft, second draft slump, how to edit a novel, how to edit a book, novel editing tips, how to edit, writing tips

Id: a1kF3JyhfSI

Length: 12min 56sec (776 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 03 2020