You have a complete draft of your book. How close are you to publishing?
Many authors are surprised to find how far finishing a first draft of a book is from the end of the formal writing process.
One of the best outcomes of finishing a first book is the sense that if you had to do it again, you would know better how to do it. You would probably do it a lot faster. You would know yourself better as an author. You have learned the pace and feel of a complete book. You have felt the arc of the whole project. You have experienced that feeling of balance that comes with having gone over a complete draft with a fine-tooth comb again and again. You will know the strength of your plot and characters because you will have responded to rounds of feedback from early readers and decided your decisions were sound. Certainly you will know that finishing a first draft is just the start of getting to the finish line of publishing.
Writing a book proceeds in phases. It starts with developing a concept moves into long hours of putting words on the page and ends with polishing. Each author follows a different process. The rare one can pound out a book in a fit of inspiration in a few weeks, or months, but this is the exception. An author under contract to a publishing house might likely have an 18 month contract for submission. Authors hoping to eventually get a publisher or to self-publish might have a personal path to completion of years or even decades.
Some stages take longer than others. Some authors start with an idea and just write. Others work carefully to first create a detailed outline. Some meticulously align their ideas and brainstorm their novel to the tune of the famous and historic Three Act Structure. Chances are, taking the book from first to final draft will take far longer than you initially think.
Completing an outline, writing the first scene or first chapter are all rewarding, but little feels as good as completing a full draft. The ability to say it is all there is immensely satisfying. You can crack out the champagne when you type the last word of that initial complete draft, but time will show it is a prequel to the real party that is yet to come.
It is only after a first complete draft is finished that many key parts of the writing process kick in. If an author has a solid structure and outline with perfectly fitted scenes and complete character development, the book could indeed be close to the finish line. If not, this is the time to get really creative and really critical.
The time it takes to get to the final finish line is dependent on how good your underlying structure and story are and how clean your writing is. A surprising number of writers can bring together a book without writing degrees or sticking to a formal process of outlining, scene stacking or even knowledge of the three Act structure, the classic way of structuring a novel. This ability reflects dedication, innate talent and the availability of a great story that had a natural beginning, middle and ending.
Authors should try to bring on the emergence of a first full draft as soon as they are ready. This is why so many extol the value of starting with a complete outline. It is akin to having a map that tells you how to get from start to finish. The map makes sure you do not go off course.
The best way to get to a first full draft is to apply discipline. Make sure, as soon as you can manage, to start reading and writing on your book as a whole. If you started with separate documents for parts of your book you can keep them that way, but get used to reading them through in chronological order. The reason this point is so important is that this is the only way your reader will experience the book. If you have excellent descriptions, facts, or scenes that are wonderfully realized but come too late, the reader might not still be there to appreciate them when they finally appear. Order of occurrence, action and reaction are everything. Readers become especially frustrated and put down books over things you could have easily fixed.
The most important thing to learn in writing a work as long as a book is the importance of context. You can write the most perfect set of paragraphs, but they might be meaningless in the context of your book if they lie outside the flow of the story. This is why seasoned writers wait to polish scenes until they are sure it belongs in the final structure.
The most challenging books to pull together and complete are those that started life as a series of vignettes. Writers who start books by writing scene after scene, especially if they are looking to draw inspiration from their intellectual and creative explorations may find it the hardest to weave together the pieces into one tapestry.
Chances are, unless you are a savant who wrote from beginning to end a fully formed story, you will have sections that need work. Many authors underestimate how much work they have yet to do. Often a kind of reading fatigue sets in and it is hard to plough on.
After structure and plot are finalized, the book must still be polished. Before final copyediting comes meticulous checking for consistency. You might have slipped on dates or aspects of chronology. You will find duplicated, skipped, reversed, or ambiguous details. Perhaps you have alternative spellings of a name, where you changed your mind halfway through. This is a natural part of the creative process as you build the story in your mind. Often we embellish as the story goes on and any spurious or opposed details need to be harmonized or suitably cross-matched where they appear earlier in the story.
Polishing can take a surprising amount of time because now you have a serious number of words to work on and it just takes time to get through them all. Skimming the text for the feel of it is not enough anymore. At this point every word counts. The best books have been considered word-for-word multiple times. No rock has been left unturned.
Before, during and after polishing you will want beta-readers. It is great to get readers to look at scenes or chapters at any point, but the most pivotal time to ask for critical feedback is when the book is complete but you are still willing to consider changes. This is the time you want feedback on the entire thing. Does it hang together? This is the main question you will have. Do your readers get to the end? Did their take away message match your vision for the book?
Unfortunately, some people turn a blind eye to problems in their first complete draft in favour of getting it out the door. They are lulled into a feeling of being done by the sheer sense of accomplishment of having a complete draft. Some like the frenzy of writing and fail to savour the idea of spending long hours improving on this foundation.
In some cases it might be quite suitable for an early draft to go out the door. If the book was an act of catharsis, a personal journey and never intended for wider consumption, it is more than enough just that it was completed. This could be true in the case of a memoir, especially. If the book is intended to be of interest beyond the author’s immediate circle of family and friends, though, it needs to be critically examined and crafted such that it can stand alone and meet reader expectations for structure, novelty, suspense and professionalism.
If you are sitting on a complete draft of a book, congratulations. It is a true achievement. It gives membership in a rarefied club. Only the truly dogged get books out to readers in finished form. Enjoy this last phase of the process of pushing yours to completion.
