10 Steps to Turn Draft 1 into a Published Piece (that you can be proud of)
How to revise like a pro — it’s more than just fixing grammar
Over the last eight years, I’ve written over 500 scripts and stories for national TV shows, advertisements and written publications. And no, the stories do not just emerge perfectly crafted, while I effortlessly toss my hair back and chuckle glamorously at creative meetings.
It’s disheartening, I know. You have a fire-cracker of an idea, you run the marathon and actually get it written, and then you realise — oh Lord, it’s crap.
DON’T PANIC.
REVISE.
Here’s how to transform your first draft into a rich, layered, powerful story—
- Remind Yourself that You’re in Great Company
“The first draft of anything is shit.” — Ernest Hemingway
“It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.” ─ C. J. Cherryh
All right? Now that the sun has come up again, this is what you need to accept:
Good writers edit. A lot.
Good writers know that rewriting is when the magic happens. Your first draft is supposed to be this frenzied scream, a crazed leap from mountain peak to mountain peak of plot — it is YOU discovering your story. So, if you’ve gotten one draft down, congratulations. Half the battle is over.
Now to separate the good writers from the mediocre.
Are you ready to look and re-look and re-re-re-look at every single word, sentence and paragraph in your writing? I’m sorry, you need to be. [Some writers do fondly remember “that book” that just flowed out of them, perfectly formed, but that is the exception, not the rule. If you want to be a professional writer, you have to be able to edit till your brain goes blurry from reading your damn story over and over.]
But it will be worth it, I promise. You will create something far richer and more powerful than you ever imagined you could.
Now, exactly how do you revise?
2. Read your Story Out Loud
a. Read your piece aloud to yourself. You’ll hear the run on sentences, stilted dialogue, awkward or incorrect wording, awful grammar, and the parts that are just plain dull. (Plus, it’s fun to sit there talking and laughing and gasping to yourself!)
Next, see your story play out — line by line — like a film in your head. The harsh notes, convoluted plot points and blank spaces will spring out at you.
b. Now, imagine you’re telling the story to someone — what would you say?
CUT. EVERYTHING. ELSE.
Basically, this means that if a scene (or, to some extent, dialogue or description) does not move the plot forward or give necessary information — in other words, if it is not story — out it goes. When in doubt, ask yourself — If I remove this, does my story fall apart?
If the answer is no, that bit probably needs to go.
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
― Stephen King
c. Read your story to an honest friend (however amateur a reader he/she is)
I always read fiddly pieces to my husband, a friend or someone else in my family, and ask — When were you bored?
If they were bored at any point - CUT THAT PART. Yes, cut it however beautifully it is written, however rapturously the words flow.
If your listener doesn’t understand something and needs an avalanche of explanation to get it — it probably IS too confusing. You know your story inside out, now your job is to make sure others find it as real and clear as you do.
“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” ― Neil Gaiman
At this point, you may need to outline or write your story in simple bullet-points to see if the bare bones of the plot make sense and create a powerful story. Do it. No amount of wonderful words are going to clothe a weak skeleton. [Note: This is especially true for humorous stories — your plot itself, without any jokes, needs to be funny. Just check out Wikipedia for the plot summaries of TV shows/films you find funny and you’ll see what I mean.]
3. Add Depth
While revising, I normally add smaller sub-plots, characterisations (tics, catchphrases etc), gags or other little ideas, fine-tune the dialogue, focus on secondary characters and their reactions, and paint each scene clearly.
I do this during revisions because the centre of gravity of your story is its protagonist. So, your first draft is basically hanging on to your protagonist’s coat-tail as she shoots through the plot. Now, in the second draft, you have the chance to make your story layered and real.
This basically means that your protagonist(s) obviously doesn’t operate in a silo, there is a world around her. Keeping the focus on her, you now have a chance to breathe life into her world.
4. Examine Subplots
Sub plots are powerful when used skilfully, but detract from the story’s message when used randomly. Well-written subplots either amplify the story’s message, show a different facet of your story’s theme, provide relief, or make the characters’ lives richer. (I strongly recommend Michael Tierno’s brilliant and simple Aristole’s Poetics for Screenwriters to learn using sub-plots effectively to drive home your story).
5. Rewrite Exposition — a.k.a. SHOW, DON’T TELL
SHOW the reader your world and characters. If your world is cruel, show it with an incident of insane cruelty. If your character’s a rebel, don’t just write, ‘Sarah was a rebel’. Show Sarah standing up to authority at great risk to herself, show her breaking rules recklessly. Is your character angry? Have him punch a wall, feel red bile fill his veins, bite his lips till they bleed!
Readers don’t want to take your word for anything; show them your world, so they know it for themselves. Once they feel it deep down in their bones, it becomes real.
That’s storytelling.
[A note on describing physical setting: Simply imagine you are there — what do you see, smell, hear, feel? My personal rule is: write so clearly that someone can draw the scene based solely on your words. Don’t just say ‘trees and flowers’, say ‘the oak tree’ and ‘the blue jacarandas’. Next, once you’ve written the description clearly, say the same thing beautifully. ]
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. — Anton Chekhov
6. Don’t Give Up
I know it’s awful. Your eyes are blurry and your brain is fried and you dip and float between despair and pride. Stick with your story. You will love it, hate it, even loathe it. But finish. Revise each word, then revise it all again. And slowly, your story will smoothen under your hands, the scenes will flow, faster and faster… towards an irrevocable, terrific end. Trust me.
One of my favourite writers, Amos Oz, describes the writing process as similar to a jeweller setting stones in an intricate bracelet. The jeweller carefully chooses a stone, and you carefully choose a word. You set the word in a sentence and see how it looks. More often that not, you take the word out and look at it again, feel its texture in your fingers, taste it and try it somewhere else.
Stick in there. You will find the magnificent effect you are looking for.
7. Take a Break
Now that you’ve been to hell and back, take a break. Vacation, go on a long walk, play music. You’ll gain some distance and be able to see your story with fresh eyes (and without triggering your gag reflex). You’ll be able to read it like a reader. And it’ll be much easier to figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it.
(For inspiration, check out Gav’s brilliant Zen Pencils Da Vinci tribute “Step Away from the Canvas” https://zenpencils.com/comic/davinci/)
“The best advice I can give on this is, once it’s done, to put it away until you can read it with new eyes. When you’re ready, pick it up and read it, as if you’ve never read it before. If there are things you aren’t satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a writer: that’s revision.” ― Neil Gaiman
8. Clean Up
This is basic. We spoke about it in detail in an earlier post (https://writingcooperative.com/10-sure-fire-ways-to-write-a-story-a-week-that-publishers-want-to-accept-531f0c65da1). Fundamentally, you must learn the format of whatever form you are writing, read publishers’ submission guidelines thoroughly and make doubly sure of your grammar and syntax.
9. Research Publishers/Channels and Work on your Pitch
Most publishers/channels have a list of genres and ‘types of pieces’ they are looking for. You could simply check their websites/TV Channels to understand what sort of books/articles/shows they normally take on. Once you do this, see which one is a good fit for you. It’ll be that much easier to sell them your work.
Work on your query letter/pitch. This is the FIRST SAMPLE of your writing that potential clients will see, so make sure it’s well written. A simple google search will give you tonnes of good info on writing interesting, solid pitches. Basically, what you want to do is make your story sound irresistible — so tell publishers what it’s about in an exciting way (have you found a new angle on an old idea? have you done some amazing research? what IS your awesome, unique story?), mention how long your story is and what genre and age group it is targeted at. Also, include some background about yourself, especially if you have credentials that make you uniquely qualified to write the story.
10. Keep Writing
At the very beginning of my career, my mentor told me, “Writing is, after all, re-writing. And rejection.”
He was right. Over the years, my writing has been rejected by a wide variety of clients — ad agencies, TV channels, universities, magazines, book agents. You name it, and I’ve been rejected by them. I am still being rejected terrifyingly regularly. And some of these rejection are still harsh. I’ve been told (by the same mentor) that something I had been extremely proud of writing was, in fact, ‘chicken-shit’. When someone looks at a piece you’ve poured your heart and soul into and asks, “WTF went wrong? You slaughtered this story!”, it’s a little tough to rally.
But rally you must. Because this is when it gets good.
This is when you start trying harder, reading more, learning more, absorbing more writing into your skin and beating, bleeding heart. This is when you realise that you want to write, no matter what.
This is when you start becoming good.
Good writers rise to the challenge and constantly up their game. Good writers revise shitty first drafts till they become good second drafts, or salvage something from them and pivot them into new stories. Good writers keep practicing, churning out dry-run novels and scripts and articles, exercising their writing muscles. Writing, after all, just like life, is just about getting better.
So, pick yourself up, brush yourself off and write — write to make sure nobody can reject you this time.
“The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering “Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!” and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there’s nothing left to write.” — Neil Gaiman
Six years ago, I got a bunch of the worst rejections of my career. The show I was working on shut down, clients refused to pay up, good publishers and studios weren’t responding and the universities I wanted to study in rejected me. I was doubtful I’d even survive as a writer. I spent a few months in this drama-queen despair, doing whatever writing jobs I could get, when a chance to write a test-script for Sesame Street (India) popped up. And, because I had been working hard — reading, writing and assimilating feedback on multiple rejected applications— I realised I could NOW handle the complex writing unique to Sesame Street. It became one of the most fulfilling projects I have ever worked on, and the only reason I got it was those awful rejections.
So, hang in there. I promise you, writing’s about to get very real, and very beautiful.
Good luck!
ProWritingAid is a powerful suite of over 20 different writing and editing tools. Copy your draft into their online editor and check grammar, sentence flow, overused words, and more. Try it for free!
