So, you finish the first draft. You are hopefully proud of yourself– it’s still a big deal to get so much word vomit on the page and out of your head. But what is a second draft for? There are four aspects to think of before you even start the clean up process:
- Plot(s)
- Theme(s)
- Worldbuilding
- Characterization
Think of these as the tools you’ll need to make the first draft into a second draft. Next, think of your plan of attack.
- If your story has multiple point of view characters, go through the story with each character separately. For example, if you were writing Game of Thrones, you would go through all the Daenerys chapters first, then Bran, etc. This will help you particularly draw out that character’s characterization and their specific plots and themes. Also, if you were writing the A Song of Ice and Fire series, get to it. We’ve been waiting.
- If you do not have multiple point of view characters, you are free to start from the beginning and work your way through. That’s probably what you wanted to do anyway.
As you read, you will want to have an eye out for these aspects:
Plot
You probably learned about plot in elementary school. You definitely learned about it by the time you were in high school. There is a basic shape to a plot that’s vaguely triangular when drawn out. I won’t go into the specifics of it here, but you should see if your work follows the general idea of plot.
But why? What if you wanted to write a special work that doesn’t do that “plot” thing?
I’m not saying it can’t work. But I’ll say it generally doesn’t. Audiences are used to the plot structure because our brains have trained that that’s how stories are done– from the time of oral storytelling to cinema and streaming, an audience expects certain things to be present toward the beginning, some kind of complications in the middle, and some kind of closure in the end. Deviate from that to your peril. (The show Game of Thrones is a great example of how NOT to end your series. Or how to end it in such a way that it becomes known for how bad it is.)
So look for plot templates. See how well your work fits. It probably does instinctively. Where it doesn’t, see if it works– or mark it specifically for feedback from your readers. Does it work?
Theme
I always teach my students that theme is what a work is trying to say. Sometimes this is intentional; sometimes it isn’t. When I’ve taught film and show Night of the Living Dead, George Romero notably didn’t have in mind to create a film commenting on the civil rights movement– but it’s apparent that he did. (We could talk at length about “death of the author” and such, but we’ll leave that be for now as well.)
But, for our purpose, you likely sat down to tell a story not just for the sake of telling a story, but likely because you had an idea you wanted to share. Love is what gives us strength through hardship; even the most ordinary of us can become heroes; desiring power, even for good reasons, can corrupt the best of us.
As you go through your first draft, look for moments that reinforce your theme; see if there are places where it needs to be drawn out more. (This should look organic, not as overt as a children’s story– unless, of course, you’re writing a children’s story.)
Worldbuilding
I love worldbuilding. One of the things that I love whenever I read, watch, or play in a world of speculative fiction is going, “Huh! So that’s how that works here!”
For fantasy and science fiction this is mostly going to be how the world is different from our own world, but EVEN REALISTIC FICTION HAS WORLDBUILDING.
While a lot of the macro truths will be true in realistic fiction, you’ll need to understand how the changes required to tell your story ripple through. This could look like the invention of a detective on a police force, creating a small town that doesn’t actually exist, or an entire alternate history in which there is a small group of super-powered individuals who regularly save the world.
While worldbuilding can encompass a lot, you want to be able to answer:
- Where does the story take place? (Specific locations, the settlements the locations are in, the nations that those settlements belong to.)
- What is the geography like? What is the weather commonly like?
- What is the religious system/are the religious systems? How do differing beliefs interact?
- Is there/are there organizations which affect the plot? What of their structure is important to know?
- Are there different species? (Think fantasy race.) What makes them different from humans?
- How do people travel? How do people communicate across distances?
- What is the economy like? What is it based on? (How do people make money and do they have any?)
- What are the political structures and persuasions of the area? (Is there a king? Does the town want to rebel?)
- Is there magic? How much of magic is understood? What aspects are understood? (Is magic a chaotic thing, or a science?)
These are the most baseline questions you will want to be able to answer.
Characterization
Similar to how encompassing worldbuilding can be, characterization could take you far too much time. Make sure that you (and your readers) know:
- What a character looks like. Specific details that are distinctive are the most important. (A character with brown eyes and brown hair won’t stand out. A character in a sling who has the number 4 carved into his cheek will.)
- What are the general personality traits of the character? (This is where I mentally cast certain actors as the characters; it allows me to describe the character and imagine how they talk. Even if you don’t cast a specific person, you should have a clear idea of how they behave in a room of people.)
- What motivates the character, especially the main character? What is their biggest goal for the story? Does this goal interfere or compete with another motivation?
Things You Know, Things the Reader Should and Shouldn’t
You as the writer should know the answer to all of these questions (and more). Some of this information might not be for the reader to know, or at least not at first. A character who is in love with a character but is offered their dream job in another part of the country is going to be working through the tension of those two motivations; you as the writer ought to know which is stronger, but it should be part of the journey for the reader.
HOWEVER, there are things that you should make sure are clear for your reader. If you know that a character is an elf, but you never tell your reader, and they become confused, you have missed out on making sure that the characterization is clear. You might want to make note in your reading of what you see as explicit answers for the reader and what might be only implicit information. Make sure they know what they need to know, make sure you don’t explain things they shouldn’t, and make sure you don’t overload the beginning with a detailed treatise on your world’s magic system or something similarly boring.
Thank you for reading!
I hope that this is helpful for you, wherever you are in the process of writing. If you learned something or found this entertaining, please consider donating to support the work I do.
Happy writing!
Storyscribe 