THE END IS ONLY THE BEGINNING
You type the words THE END onto the page, lean back in your chair and let out a satisfied sigh. But even now the fat lady has only just arrived in her dressing room, and she is still a heck of a long way short of going on stage and actually opening her mouth.
Even if it has been written by an absolute master of the genre (by now you must be able to guess who I am thinking of as an example so I won’t mention his name again), a novel’s first draft is almost never good enough. On completing my first draft I find it useful to forget about the whole thing for at least a fortnight in order to clear any pre-conditioned thoughts from my head. After all, I’ve been virtually living with my characters and their adventures almost every day for probably a year, and I need to get out of my familiarity zone and use a separate critical eye in order to spot where improvements need to be made. At this stage it also helps if you have a few family members or friends who enjoy a good read and who are prepared to take a look at your manuscript and offer their views. Just make it clear to them that you’re not looking for kind words but genuine feedback. Much better to have major problems spotted now than later on by potential agents or publishers.
Added Drama
In my first draft of Buried Pasts, the rift between Stafford and the violently embittered teenager Alan slowly begins to heal when the condemning stories that the youth was told about Stafford when a small child are proven to be grossly untrue. However, whilst this resolution might appear to be quite feasible, on revisiting the story I quickly realised that it was far too simple and lacked sufficient drama. Even allowing for the preceding action, a much bigger finish to one of the major storylines in the novel was required.
I made major changes, with Alan still now refusing to accept the truth, even when presented with absolute proof of Stafford’s innocence. Concussed and out of his mind with confusion, the boy flees the hospital he is currently a patient in and runs wild, straight into trouble with a genuinely villainous character from his past – a man who wishes him serious harm. Only after Stafford places his own life on the line to rescue Alan does the teenager begin to consider that he might just have been wrong after all. Even after all this and Alan is safe, it still requires further heroics from Stafford and his former rear gunner before the boy’s new found perspective really begins to take root.
This is only one aspect of the rewriting Buried Pasts underwent. Others, admittedly less large in scale but important all the same, included: further developing certain aspects of my characterisation, tightening dialogue and narrative, and bringing back a minor character that previously only existed in the early part of the story. (See if you can guess who this might be before their reappearance if you ever get around to reading Buried Pasts.)
Stupid or What?
There’s also the highly important aspect of double-checking for inconsistencies and factual errors. During the first draft of a hopefully upcoming novel, without thinking properly, I recently wrote: ‘Arnie stared at him for several seconds before replying.’ Sounds fine on the surface, except that the character Arnie is depicted as being totally blind. I didn’t even realise my mistake until checking back much later.
How stupid would I have looked if that had been sent off to a publisher or agent?