Steps to Editing That Scary First Draft
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1. Establish the Foundation
Step Away First: Give yourself a break (a few hours to a few days) so you can return with a clearer perspective. Distance creates objectivity.
Accept That It’s Messy: A first draft is supposed to be chaotic. You’re shaping mud into form, not carving marble.
Gather Your Tools: Have your outline, notes, character sheets, and a place to track edits (Google Docs comments, Notion, a notebook, etc.).
Get Another Set of Eyes: Establish your feedback goals (e.g. pacing, dialogue, or overall plot) and let someone else read it, be it a friend, freelance editor, or another writer (editing their work in exchange).
2. Shape Your Editing Approach
Do a Big-Picture Read: Before touching sentences, read from start to finish. Look for plot holes, pacing issues, or character inconsistencies.
Identify Your Priorities: Focus on the biggest problems first, such as structure, arcs, and emotional beats. Don’t waste time fixing commas in a scene you may cut entirely.
Take Notes, Don’t Fix Yet: Mark issues with comments, highlights, or tags instead of editing while reading. This keeps that momentum.
3. Build the Second Draft (Structural Edits)
Strengthen the Spine: Fix plot holes, cut scenes that don’t matter, add missing beats, and connect loose ends.
Refine Arcs: Ensure characters grow consistently, motivations make sense, and relationships progress logically.
Tighten Pacing: Remove or shorten slow scenes, expand high-stakes ones, and balance action with breathing moments.
Check for Logic & Continuity: This means dates, distances, ages, injuries, world rules. Seriously. Make sure everything matches.
4. Define Scene-Level Improvements
Check Scene Purpose: Every scene needs a goal, conflict, and consequence. Cut scenes that exist only for vibes.
Strengthen Openings & Endings: Ensure each chapter starts with energy and ends with tension, a question, or movement.
Sharpen Dialogue: Remove filler chit-chat; increase subtext; ensure each character has a distinct voice.
Show, Don’t Dump: Replace exposition paragraphs with actions, choices, and sensory detail where possible.
5. Develop Sentence-Level Clarity (Line Edits)
Cut Wordiness: Remove redundant words, overlong descriptions, and repeated ideas.
Fix Clunky Sentences: Adjust rhythm, flow, and transitions. Make your writing feel intentional, not accidental.
Improve Vocabulary Naturally: Swap vague words (“thing,” “stuff,” “seemed”) for precise ones without forcing purple prose.
Maintain Tone & Style: Ensure your voice stays consistent across chapters, especially if you wrote the draft over many weeks or months.
6. Develop a Polished Final Pass
Proofread Slowly: Look for grammar, typos, punctuation, and formatting issues. Tools like Grammarly (disclaimer: is an AI tool) or ProWritingAid can help but not replace your judgment.
Read Aloud: Helps catch awkward phrasing, unnatural dialogue, and rhythm issues.
Check for Repetitions: Repeated metaphors, gestures, words, or character quirks can weaken your prose.
Format for Your Medium: Whether it's a manuscript, short story, or comic script, make sure the format is clean and professional.
Techniques to Make Editing Easier
Color-Code Passes: One color for dialogue fixes, one for plot changes, one for grammar, etc.
Edit in Layers: Structure → scenes → dialogue → sentences → polish.
Keep Deleted Scenes: Save them in a “graveyard” doc that you may reuse them later.
Use Track Changes: Helps you stay aware of what you cut and why.
Examples of Strong Editing Approaches
Stephen King: Lets drafts rest 6 weeks, then edits big-picture first.
Neil Gaiman: Believes every draft improves the last by making the story more like what you intended it to be.
Octavia Butler: Rewrote constantly − even during drafting − because of her her philosophy: “Persist.”
Brandon Sanderson: Uses multiple editing passes, each with a different focus (continuity, pacing, dialogue, etc.).
The Guardians of Camoria by A.A. Walker
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