Four Ways to Polish Your First Draft

So you’ve written an article, an essay, or your very own book! It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to reach that last sentence. Now you want to send it straight to press, or your editor. But hold your horses. Of course, you should have a professional editor to check, clarify, and correct your work—like us here at TIPS. However, there are some good reasons to send a second draft rather than a first.

Why? And why are we, professional editors, telling you trade secrets?

Because the process can go a lot smoother if you have read your work after writing it. Because communication between the editor and you cannot be constant. Because you may forget why you made certain choices when they ask about them. Or because you would rather the editor focus on bigger issues than an abundance of technical errors. The reasons are many! 

Without further ado, here are four tricks to polish your rough draft.

1. Know your style and know your weaknesses.

Here are some questions to keep in mind as you reread your manuscript the first time:

1) What words, phrases, and techniques do I reuse frequently? For example, you might use certain words and clichés too much, or ask a lot of rhetorical questions.

2) Did I make this point already? When you have a pet peeve or passion about something, you may bring it up over and over until you tire the reader. Better to give it one space within your work and reference back to it (unless you’re taking it on from a new perspective).

3) Is this relevant? A pet peeve or passion can also lead to a winding story or extraneous political or personal diatribe. Save extraneous soapboxes and anecdotes for dinner parties.

4) Why do I break my paragraphs? How often? Sometimes writers are loathe to hit that “enter/return” button. Sometimes they just hit it at the wrong time. Make sure your separations make sense (i.e., you change topics, setting, or speaker, or are adding drama).

5) What tone am I using? Do you attempt to sound formal here, but over here slip into colloquialisms? Keep contractions, slang, humor, and tone of vocabulary consistent. If you’re trying to be humorous, keep only the jokes and references that have a point; and if you are trying to be formal, there’s no need to pull out stilted, archaic vocabulary when modern will do.

After you have answered these questions, you’ll know more what to watch out for in your writing.

2. Keep notes as you go and “reverse outline.”

As you read your manuscript, take notes on it. The point of each paragraph must be clear and linked logically to the paragraphs before and after it. The same goes for chapter and section organization. Do not be afraid to put chapter 5 in front of chapter 3 and rewrite a little if it makes more sense.

Pretend you are a student of your own work, and must be able to find pertinent points, related sections, important definitions, and warrants for claims.

And always note what tense you are in and whom you are addressing (e.g., is “you” the student? The teacher? The everyman?).

3. Overwrite, then boil it down.

If you are having difficulty trying to articulate a slippery idea, do not stare at the page waiting for the perfect crystallization to come. Circle it like a hunter: write out every aspect you can think of, make approximate comparisons, and explain to different audiences. When you’ve covered all you can think of, find the strongest and most important parts and use them in a few sentences.

4. Give yourself new eyes.

First, wait a while and let your work settle first, so that the words speak for themselves rather than to your memories and intentions writing the words. Then, use these fun tricks to feign objectivity. Combine them for extra power.

1) Make the document double-spaced instead of single-spaced.

2) Change the font, its size, and/or the color of the text.

3) Read it out loud.

4) Read it out loud in an over-the-top Shakespearean voice.

5) Have a friend read it out loud to you

6) Print it out, make an online draft, or convert to PDF. (It is 100% guaranteed you will find errors you didn’t before.)

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These four methods will help you defend artistic decisions with confidence, direct editors’ attention, and improve your raw writing! And once you’ve gotten another draft up, consider turning to us at TIPS for handling technicalities, style, organization, clarity, consistency, and so forth. Thanks for reading, and good luck!