I've finished the fourth draft of my work in progress. I believe my self-imposed deadline of Jan. 31 is an achievable goal.
The manuscript is nearly 92,000 words; an increase of about 5k after the third draft. Will it continue to grow? Possibly, but my focus in the fifth rewrite will be to trim excess narrative and dialogue, remove pointless subplots, correct typos, fix grammatical mistakes, and rewrite anything that hinders the flow of the story.
The first thing I did, after completing the latest draft, was to print it. Coming from a background in the news business, I like marking up hard copy (preferably with a red pen) and being able to physically flip pages, rather than going back and forth with pages on a computer screen, while editing. I sometimes lose a sense of direction on the computer, especially after several rewrites.
If things go well, and I'm crossing my fingers, I'll have two more reads on the copy before sending it to my editor.
And if not, I'll continue to work on the manuscript until I'm completely satisfied that it's ready for an editor's eyes.
Until the next time. . .
The manuscript is nearly 92,000 words; an increase of about 5k after the third draft. Will it continue to grow? Possibly, but my focus in the fifth rewrite will be to trim excess narrative and dialogue, remove pointless subplots, correct typos, fix grammatical mistakes, and rewrite anything that hinders the flow of the story.
The first thing I did, after completing the latest draft, was to print it. Coming from a background in the news business, I like marking up hard copy (preferably with a red pen) and being able to physically flip pages, rather than going back and forth with pages on a computer screen, while editing. I sometimes lose a sense of direction on the computer, especially after several rewrites.If things go well, and I'm crossing my fingers, I'll have two more reads on the copy before sending it to my editor.
And if not, I'll continue to work on the manuscript until I'm completely satisfied that it's ready for an editor's eyes.
Until the next time. . .
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