Second-draft land is a weird place. After the whirlwind of writing a first draft, you might think the second draft would be easier. But, as I’ve learned, it’s anything but.
In the first draft, you’re essentially telling yourself the story—letting your imagination run wild and figuring things out as you go. But in the second draft, the real work begins. You kind of know where you’re going now, but you’ve got holes to fill, changes to make, and things to fix. This is when you look back at your first-draft self with a mix of compassion and frustration, sometimes even asking, “WTF were you thinking?”
Take my current project, for example. In the first chapter, my main character gets dumped. I originally named the guy Dylan, but then I realized—his family is from Colombia, and they moved to New York just before he was born. They wouldn’t have named him Dylan! So, back to the drawing board I went and I changed it to Diego. (Thank goodness for Find and Replace tools)
Then, in the second chapter, I had my main character, Ruby, wake up, go to school, and head to swim practice—all in the span of three sentences. That obviously wasn’t going to work, so I had to add about 300 words just to make that opening flow. Like, did she want to talk to her parents where her parents even home, how was she feeling after getting dumped, was she worried about seeing him at school?
This book also has magical elements, and I had no idea what I was doing in the first draft. So before I even touched the second draft, I had to sit down and figure out where the original magic came from, why the villain is so angry and how he got his powers, where everyone’s been hiding (spoiler: time portals and alternate universes are involved), and why the boots they wear are so essential to their tech. It was a lot to sort out!
But second drafts are where the real magic happens. This is where you uncover those juicy details that you can drip in earlier to delight your readers, where you truly get a sense of your characters, and, for me, where I tighten up the sense of place and how everything fits together.
The journey doesn’t end here, though. I’m going to be working on this book and refining it over the next few months. If you want to follow along with my progress, join my newsletter to stay updated on all the drafts, edits, and discoveries along the way.