The Second Draft by Karen Shughart

I’ve just finished the second draft of Murder at Freedom Hill, the next book in the Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series. Draft one is the rough draft, where I have a general idea of the plot, the main characters and whodunit, but there are a lot of gaps between the beginning and the end

Draft two is the one that takes the most time, because it’s at the point where the disparate threads of the book must be woven together, the pieces of the puzzle must fit, and the story becomes cohesive.  My brain almost never shuts off. I keep a notepad nearby to write down ideas as they occur to me, sometimes in the middle of the night and often when I’m multitasking. These are the ideas that help to fill in the gaps in the story and where the rough draft evolves into something smoother.

 I write the introduction, dedication, and acknowledgements in draft two. I add or delete characters, expand the number of suspects, and accordingly change the story line. Now’s also when I check for timeline inaccuracies, chapters that aren’t listed in order, cut and paste sections of the book and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite: the prologue, the epilogue, chapters with missing pieces.

Then there’s what I call “wordsmithing”, changing some words to others whose meanings are more precise. Inside a folder on my desk is a sheet of paper with an extensive list of words to substitute for “said” and another of overused words. Draft two is when I make those changes, too. It’s also the time for eliminating redundancies and paring down too much dialogue.

Paying attention to detail is tantamount to having a coherent finished product, and draft two is where that occurs. Recurring characters from previous books must age accordingly- a baby can’t be a teenager three years later- and someone who is described as six-feet tall can’t suddenly shrink to five-feet seven inches. Unless they’ve changed careers, they can’t be teachers in one book and truck drivers in the next or say they were born in Rochester but in another book, Buffalo. A character with blue eyes can’t also have brown eyes . It goes on and on, I’m sure you get the picture.

After spending weeks rewriting, cutting and adding chapters, and rebuilding what I destroyed to make way for what I believe will be a better story, I’m finally comfortable with draft two and ready to move on to the final draft.

Draft three is when I polish, spend lots of time copy and proof editing, re-read recipes that appear at the end of the book, and verify that all the ‘i’s’ are dotted and ‘t’s’ are crossed, at least as much as I’m able. It’s at this point that I’m finally ready to send the book to my publisher.