EDITING A BOOK after a first draft (The Dreaded 2nd Draft)

the hardest edits for me are always right after writing the first draft and then you come back to this like steaming dumpster fire manuscript that's all over the place and the characters change from beginning to end don't even look the same I'm just kidding it's not always that bad but it feels that way so if you remember almost exactly a year ago I was doing this series on writing a book with a baby and I was writing the secret shadow which is book two in my series the Queen's rise series and so this is Jezebel's second book out of three okay and honestly I really enjoyed writing it I thought it went really well but then I was absolutely terrified to edit it and I kept putting it off I kept having other things come up I ended up doing where is it I ended up going back and adding what was it I think 13 000 words and roughly 80 pages to this book right here and republishing it as a second edition to really set up book two and three better and so this book I'm so proud of it is really really good it just it had great reviews already but I feel like this just made it 10 times better it's not a novella anymore it's a full-length story and so essentially I used that as an excuse to not come back to book two and I couldn't believe the fact that I was at the end of the year and I had planned to have book two completely edited send it to Beta readers to my critique Partners you know final edits everything so that it was basically going to be done by the time this book came out but I just think I didn't really know what I was capable of how much time I would have and now that I'm a year in Zion is a little over a year old I feel like I really have a much better understanding of how much I can do in this season of life and I just I gotta take it a little bit slower so instead of vlogging the process because honestly I was overwhelmed it was just like adding on this one more huge thing that I had to do on top of editing and I already find the very first round of edits after a first draft to be the most intimidating so what I decided to do is record my expectations and my goals for editing this book and then I thought I would just come back and kind of update you and let you know so let's go back and look at past me and see what the heck I was thinking I already know it didn't go according to plan today I want to start editing book two and I have been putting this off but it is officially what day isn't October 4th I want to be done with this book by middle too late October like third week of October at the latest I want to be able to send something to my Beta readers because I like to write things down let's put this on like a bullet journal page here short and sweet book two editing goals number one is the time frame okay there are 17 chapters here first things first what was my original word count I had to go back and find I labeled this the second draft it was the one I sent to Brittany so basically what I did is I just went back and cleaned up anything that I've left gaps in the very very first draft but I would still consider it a first draft what I sent to my critique partner Brittany so this right here it says twenty six thousand nine hundred and nineteen words then after my full round of edits I ended up with 39 841 words so that was actually a total of 12 922 words added almost exactly the same amount that I added to this guy when I did the second edition funny enough so basically another 80 or so Pages if the formatting is the same back to the book itself so this is the first draft and I kind of broke it up roughly by chapters as I was drafting it I have no doubt that I need to add quite a bit in fact this book might double in size because I feel like all the books that I write now are typically fast drafted meaning that I write more The Bare Bones and then I fill them out later but anyway the 17 chapters here could be broken up roughly into two weeks I think okay what I was talking about there was like editing a chapter a day I think something around there yeah because that's about two weeks 14 days 17 chapters I think it would have gone just a little over two weeks but I just want to point out right here if you actually zoom in on this at one point I was at like 24 chapters and then I ended up merging some together so I added so much to the story that it definitely ended up being a lot more chapters and it took more than two weeks just to clarify I was definitely being overly ambitious there actually it'll fit really nice in three weeks because that gives me a few days where like on Sundays I don't work so I wouldn't do a chapter so let's say I'm planning today I kind of want to go through my critique Partners notes on this and then I want to strategize on how I want to approach the edits before I jump into them so let's not count today and let's not count Sundays because I probably won't work them but let also not count Saturdays and leave that as like a buffer day for if I fall behind which I'm sure I will okay 17 days if you don't count the weekends is the 27th which is really far wow that's cute that is cute I think that was September I thought I would finish in September and then I actually have a note in my Google Calendars where I literally I was taking notes so I wouldn't forget how much that I'd done I wrote didn't begin until Wednesday October 12th and then I only did the first page and on day two the first three pages so not great and that was all I did I literally after I wrote that note I didn't come back to it at all in October let's come back to the video we're going to be setting October 27th as our deadline and then sending to Beta readers on the 28th oh okay so I was starting this video in October my bad I I don't know I was thinking September but apparently I wanted to do all the edits in October and I do think it's doable to do a full round of edits even a second draft round which is the roughest one in my opinion in about a month I do think that's doable it definitely helps when a book is shorter though I will say that makes a big difference but like one to two months depending on how big the book is totally doable I can even do shorter for some rounds of edits but usually they're so intense that I do need a full month so it makes sense that I was setting that aside there we go those are all the decisions that we've just made together now the next thing that I want to write down is my future plans I guess like the other things that might get in the way that I kind of need to plan for as well so one of them is right here I want to proofread The Secret gift and I'm gonna get the final cover as well in my Barnes Noble copy and then I'm going to proofread that because that probably won't get here as of the time I'm filming this for depending on Barnes and Noble they're very slow right now they haven't even approved the book yet let's say two to three weeks which is roughly around the time that I'm finishing this so how would I write this I'm just gonna I also need to I am not doing anything pretty here but need to also proofread The Secret gift and I'm to put either pause in my edits or immediately after whenever I finish right around the 28th and it will only take me probably two three days to read just read through look for any last minute typos stuff like that and then update anything that I find in the document and then resubmit that file to all the vendors so it's really just a three maybe four day process all right let's talk about proofreading I don't really remember exactly how long it took but I do know I did a video on it so I will link that here I think I was wearing the same sweater anyway proofreading definitely took longer than planned I do remember that I was just so incredibly detailed and I was still tweaking like every single sentence I had a lot of pressure on myself from myself for the Secret gift for this book because I just knew where I wanted it to go and I just really wanted to get it to like the highest standard possible so I literally did nothing like I said I edited for two days in October and then I was done and it was all this book this book this book this book this book in October this book in November this book in the beginning of December because I was getting ready to publish I was doing lots of marketing things I was trying to focus on social media and I should have known that the weeks leading up to release you just cannot be doing some other major project like an edit a huge edit by the way I am just a one book at a time kind of author I know other authors who are able to go back and forth between books and they're just really good at it and I've always wanted to be that way but I'm just not I'm very much like if I'm working on this book I can't really process the idea of working on a different story at the same time I could outline something sure no problem if I'm working on a book I'm 100 in and there's just really no room for any other books and I should know that about myself by now but anyway coming back to the proofread no it did not just take a couple days it definitely took longer I think I want to say like a week or so the next thing is that I want to also prep to draft the secret curse which is book three during nanowrimo oh my gosh I had such unrealistic expectations what the heck was I think thinking draft during nanowrimo the month leading up to my release no I did not do that and I'm pretty sure oh mid-october or late October it was not long after this couple weeks at the most I was like wow I have been stupid and I need to just calm down take pressure off and just focus on one book at a time so it didn't take me long to realize this was stupid but man was I feeling ambitious when I recorded this video and so if you don't know I did Vlog some of my drafting but I just stopped I was like this is not working for me to bounce back and forth between projects I really need to stay focused the irony of that wow so I knew that I couldn't go between projects and yet I thought I could go between projects that's just that's kind of embarrassing but yes I should say for anybody who's wondering I actually have drafted the first half of book three as well and then I stopped myself and I'll link those videos below if you want to watch the Vlog about that after this one but I just sort of abruptly was like this ain't working it ain't working I gotta stop s so I went back to the secret gift and I haven't gone back to book three since then which was months ago so I think it's going to take a little bit of brain power to be like where the heck was I maybe I even need to read through the first I think I wrote Somewhere right around 15 000 words so I probably need to go back and reread those which will take a couple days as well and I'll probably end up wanting to edit as I go I'm gonna put that on there we gotta reread edit question mark and maybe also re-outline question mark now let's talk about the things that I want to add to the story because I was thinking about this and I don't know how much that I can gosh I get crazy hair I don't know how much that I can share without spoilers so let me just talk very slowly as I try to wind my way around what I want to say I was thinking as I was laying in bed thinking about the story I was like what would I enjoy adding to the story I would want to skip some of the boring stuff we don't need to see that on page and I would want to just jump right into the action I want to see more of the emotions of the character specifically Jezebel as she reacts to things but also it would be fun to show more of how the other characters are reacting I would like to add some drama because they are at this point in the Jenny Court I think I can say that without it being a spoiler okay I might be talking more about that in this video but I just had to stop because I'm so excited about what I added so let we just okay let me reel myself back in some of the things that I added were a lot of politics in the castle definitely some drama and a lot of very specific characters there's four in particular that Jezebel interacts with and the prince and actually no there's also a guard so there are some very specific characters that I really dug into had so much drama and then I also really spent more time on Jezebel's reactions how she would respond making the dialogue more interesting really snarky and oh my gosh I had so much fun and then very last minute actually I added a plot twist I added an object that's very important that ended up being important at the end and some flashbacks and I'm like I didn't even know this was gonna happen and it worked perfectly but then at the very very end I was like oh my gosh I also wanted to add some really cool outfits to really show how cool jyn is and how very different it is from the human world and so in case you don't know I like to think of the Gin they've obviously if they've got their Persian influence but I also love because they're considered a fairy I believe so I love pulling in a fairy elements so that makes me think like the cruel Prince Vibes almost which is one of my favorite fairy books and what else I also kind of lean on some vampire attributes sometimes depending on what works for the Gin so they are a very unique race they're very secretive they're very old long-lived they don't often have many children it's both like fairy and vampire like and just things like that right and so I was like I really want to not only show the setting and the castle and how cool that is because I have some of that and obviously the magic tons of magic Some Enchanted objects a secret room in the castle how their magic Works how Jezebel's shape-shifting works as well as another really fascinating gift that you will see hinted in the Enchanted Crown if you have read that but I don't want to say anymore if you haven't all of that's really cool but then I was like one of other outfits like that would be so fun and so I have this whole Pinterest board maybe I'll show you a little sneak peek where I had just been saving dresses that were unique and cool and seemed like they had fairy Vibes just things that were not very human and that just screamed like super cool and I started adding them into the story anyway I'm I'm sharing too much the story here but I hope that piques your interest and I just had to share because I got so excited but anyway coming back to what else I wanted to add I don't even remember I know this seems like so generic but I know what it means so that's what counts I know what I'm referring to but I don't want to get more specific because then you guys will have spoilers oh sorry was It spoilers let me know in the comments I don't know if it was spoilers or teasers they're like kind of the same thing sometimes this is messy but I just wrote myself a note here at the bottom where it's like come back when the edits are completed to share with the Vlog the actual timeline and like my speed did I edit a chapter a day or did I absolutely fail on that okay actual timeline that's a good question um all right I actually have emails I email my manuscript to myself every single day when I work on it and so I can tell you if I look up my email the day I started and the day I sent the last one out which I think I already know the last day but let's find when I started first day that I edited was December 12th so I waited a whole week after the book came out on December 5th I didn't start edits until December 12th that's okay that's all right I needed a week off releases are stressful okay so I sent something on the 12th on the 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 19th 20th 21st 22nd 23rd 24th and then it was basically done and it was Christmas Eve and Christmas and the events with my family after that so I took a few days off and then I came back and wrapped up the last seven notes that I had for myself on the 30th so that would be 13 days of edit no way only 13. so I guess I was faster than I thought I would be but at the same time those weren't 13 consecutive days those were just 13 days total with some breaks in between although I did do a lot of consecutive days and if I can find my bullet Journal where I tracked all that I'll put a little picture on the screen so you can see because I love trackers I use them every single time I write a book because it keeps me on task and helps me to just see how far I've come it's very motivating so I have one made out for book three which is going to come next if you're interested like this video to let me know and subscribe if you're not already so you can see that but yeah that is how editing went I did it faster than I thought but I did it way later in the year than I thought instead of October I did it in December so I guess I've learned a hard lesson about myself to not try to go back and forth between books and yet how embarrassing is this that's exactly what I'm about to do right now where I want to go and draft book three I think I'm still gonna try because I have to send booktube is sent to Beta readers right now so on December 31st in case I didn't make that clear I put together a beta questionnaire I reached out to my betas to let them know it was coming and then I sent them the book I put it into Google Docs I put in a couple notes at the end and a couple notes throughout where I wanted their opinion on some stuff and then I just sent it and so I've been on YouTube long enough to know a lot of you are going to be like wait how did you find beta readers and how do you put it in Google Docs so I'm gonna link my entire beta reader playlist here it's all great videos and especially the updated one that I did more recently pretty much shares my entire process if you want to know more about that but basically I asked them to read within it depends on the book in some cases I've said can you read in two weeks in this case I said can you read in a month or I didn't I don't know if I told them I should probably email them and tell them I'm so relaxed with my Beta readers because I just trust them so much and I know that they're gonna read so I didn't even give them a time frame but yeah in this case I set aside on my personal calendar one month for the book to be with beta readers and I am not touching it because I don't want to you know edit it in the meantime and then their feedback isn't helpful anymore because I changed it it doesn't make sense so I'm not touching it right now I finished this first round of edits which would be called the second draft the hardest draft in my opinion I will link my editing playlist below and at the end of this video if you're curious more about my editing process in general but at this point I have a month off and I want to spend that writing book three as best I can so if you're interested comment below and let me know if you like a vlog on that because that's probably what's coming up next if I can do it we'll see [Music]

Channel: Bethany Atazadeh - YA Fantasy Author

Views: 6,760

Keywords: how to write a novel, bethany atazadeh, self publishing, how to write a book, writing advice, authortube, authortuber, writing a fantasy novel, writing fantasy, editing a book, editing a novel, how to edit a book for publishing, editing a book for publishing, editing a manuscript, how to edit a book, writing tips

Id: Qan2P1TGXfk

Length: 17min 23sec (1043 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 18 2023