Draft 2.0 Club

Want to join a club (well, thread...)

The rules:
1. You must be working on draft two of your novel be it world building, character sketching, plotting, writing, editing, cover design or whatever else.
2. Post your weekly, fortnightly, or monthly goal.
3. Respond when you have reached said goal.
4. Give encouragement to others who post their goals/ shoutouts.

So, who's with me?

My goal is to be done with an outline for draft two by the end of the month (hopefully by X-mas).

Okay, I'll jump in here. I've been rewriting my outline and doing a little more world-building since the day after I finished draft one, when I realized something major and fundamental was not as I had originally assumed. A couple of nights ago, I committed on my blog to a new round of 30 days of writing. It was supposed to start today, but I was unable to restrain myself that long and started last night. I got 3067 words in, despite a very late start, so it was a good start :)

My 30 day goal is 75k (entirely reasonable and eminently beatable if I commit like I did during nano), which gives me a daily pace number of 2500 words. I'll be reporting on my blog about it every two or three days, as I did during nano, but I'll try to come in here and toss in an update periodically, in addition to that.

I have to say, 3k in, I'm much happier with the story, and how the things I learned from the first draft about the craft are expressing themselves. Gives me even higher hopes for my next project, but one thing at a time. Draft two of Dark Mirror first.

Excellent! I debated doing a total re-draft of my story as well. But I decided to re-outline first, as about 20-50% of what I wrote is salvageable.

That said, I'll probably end up re-writing everything, anyway... First step: finish outlining.

I applaud your effort! Sounds like you are off to a great start.

Second drafts are the toughest, I think (I normally do 3-4 total). It's hard to think you have to start practically over (or actually over, in your case) after spending X number of hours beating out a first draft. And then there is the added pressure of making the second draft better than the first (which in my case is both easy and hard- easy because my first draft sucks, hard because lots of things must be cut, heavily edited or replaced.) But finishing draft two sends me into a near manic state, so there is always that giddiness to look forward to and keep me going.

Good luck on the re-write!

My second draft is going to be so different from the first that there likely won't be much way to compare the two. The change I mentioned was so fundamental that none of the old manuscript is being reused. That said, I learned enough from writing it that I don't feel like it was a waste of time at least.

I did re-outline, which I finished a few days ago, left it for a day and the read it through to see if it still seemed fairly solid, which it did. The re-outline is also helping to keep me encouraged, as it already feels like this is a way better version of the story than the first draft, and I haven't quite completed my first chapter yet (disclaimer here - I write really long chapters).

Good luck to you as well on your rewrite. I suspect that, post-Christmas, we may have more company in this thread, but I have no life, really, so I needed this to keep me occupied over the holidays. Besides, I prefer to keep going while I'm enthusiastic and still in the vein of the story.

Draft 2.0 for me is going to consist, mainly, of laying the groundwork in the earlier parts of the novel so that certain important parts in the latter portions don't just jump out of nowhere. It will also involve me titling and (weakly) themeing each chapter.

Expected completion date: mid-january.

I've reread my novel and have made my first round of deletions/additions. Really, I've only expanded like two scenes. Otherwise I was just deleting everything that I didn't think added anything. My novel dropped from 103k to just under 80k. It's sort of crazy.

Right now, I'm trying to re-outline. My novel sort of changed while I was writing it and turned into more of a rant about my current job and less about the struggle to find a job, which is what it was supposed to be about. Ideally, I would have finished draft 2 this month in time for me to write something new for JanNo, but I'm doubting that's going to happen. I think I'm going to end up having to rewrite my entire novel. I had hoped to save some - and I still might be able to - but either way, I'm going to have to rewrite way more than I originally thought I would.

My goal: have a finished draft 2 by the end of January. That's 46 days to figure out where I want my novel to go and rewrite it. It's doable. I just need to focus.

I'm not sure if I'm working on draft 2.0 or not. I did a read through of the draft. Found lots of things to change or develop, but nothing that's a major change to the outline or plot. Enough that I'll need to do another read through when I'm done. Does that mean I'm working on 2.0, or 1.2?

Either way, I want to have the thing in my first reader's hands by end January at the latest, preferably mid-January if possible.

Editing draft 2 of my JuneMo novel. I did all the heavy thinking back in August or Sept, including a detailed scene outline, so all I have to do now is rewrite the damn thing. I am trying to do a scene a day, and I am managing that about four days a week.

After this draft is done, there'll be another edit where I'll mostly just be looking at the voice of the POV, and then one last one for grammar, etc.

@ Carolf

Sounds to me like it's a Draft 2, just a really polished and ready to go draft two! I can usually produce a great first draft for short stories, but I have yet to produce an even semi-readable novel in 1 draft.

I tend to think of my drafts in terms of writing a paper.

There is pre-writing: outlinging, character sketches, worldbuilding, research, etc that is done usually before and/or after the first draft.

Then draft one: a rough draft that resembles a final product in that it has a beginning, middle and end (but is not written very well, probably doesn't have compelling characters or interesting side plots.)

Draft two/ Fix it draft: For this draft my goal is to produce a product that I would not be embarrassed to let other people read. It is Draft 1.0 but better. Often, for me, characters change, plot lines are added/ taken away.

Draft three/ edited draft: this is the draft that happens after I put on my editing cap. I look at grammar, I look at sentence structure, I look at pacing. I often get a few people to read it and give their opinions. If I do a really good job, this is my final draft (but often I have to do 1 more, taking in my Beta-readers thoughts/ suggestions)

Draft four/ final draft: This is the draft where I make finishing touches. If I feel, after this draft, that more work needs to be done, I stop working on the project (to give myself space and distance from it- then go on to draft 5 (which is often draft 2.0 all over again- with major revisions...))

But that is just me. You can call/ number your drafts whatever you want!

I'm working on draft 2 of last year's NaNo. I hope to have the outline and redone character sheets complete by new years, and start on the rewriting in January.

I went in and fixed obvious typos, the ones that appear in red in the word processor. Then I read the book myself on my e-reader, making note of things like incorrect word choice, and awkward phrasing. Then I went through and made sure all the characters had names - many only had placeholder names.

That reminds me, I have a few names I need to change. I have generic names for them, that are a descriptive English name. I want to translate those names into Latin. For example, one character is named "Middle" because he is in the middle. That looks stupid in English, but might look good translated. And someone who knew Latin might be in on the Joke.

But other than that, I think I am ready to let some friends read it. I'm a little nervous, because I'm going to get one shot at this, I'm not likely to get them to read it a second time, so I want to get it as good as I can before I hand it to them. Hopefully, I can get some useful feedback.

I like the sound of this place - I missed NaNoWrMo - but that's okay, as I already have a 69K novel to work on. What I'm not sure of, is exactly how to do this stage of the editing. I have no problem with the line by line editing, spellchecking, changing a sentence or two, improving the grammar of a sentence, little things like that. It's the big stuff I'm not so sure of.

I know there are sections I have that are pretty much just exposition, and those I can expand into proper scenes. At least I hope so.
But I have a nasty fear that actually it's the whole thing needs something doing to it. But I've no idea what that might be.

I liked the look of the Mystery section - but I haven't had any replies to anything I've said in here... not in any section.

Has everybody gone home? Or do we just not get email alerts for threads we've contributed to?

Just in case it's the second thing, (strange though that sounds, surely I can't be that??) I'll keep this tab open.

Oh, and I liked the mystery section because I'm writing in that genre and they all sounded so like me it felt like I'd come home.

I'm on draft 2.0. I just finished re-writing 20,000/60,000 words. My goal is to be finished with this draft by the end of January, then go through and do another hard copy edit, then another computer edit (only not completely re-written like this one). I'd love LOVE to start quering by the end of Feb or early March, but that might be pushing it a bit.

Okay, i said I'd be back and report, and I haven't yet, but I have the best excuse for it. Been busy writing. See? Told you. I haven't gotten much done tonight yet (The night is young yet) but I hit 25,819 last night for the rewrite, so it's going well. Better storytelling too, so I'm very cautiously optimistic about the draft I'll have when I'm done. Not sure yet how long it will be when I'm done, but the first draft was 107k when finished, and I'm hoping to land in that vicinity when done.

Congradulations!

I'm doing.... Well I have my synopsis written, but haven't started my outline yet. I came down with a Christmas Cold an am busy feeling sorry for nyself.

Update: I'm at just over 20K on draft 2.0. All this holiday stuff is destroying my productivity. And I think I just wrote a scene I'll need to completely cut out. ugh...but progress is being made.

i would like to have a new character (he's already a character but he has no personality and is so boring but he is important, later in the series) and i need to make him interesting but i have no idea how to ........i need to think of secrets that he can have!

I'm struggling with my Draft 2.0 so I'm going to post here to get motivated. I'm rewriting last year's nanovel completely. I love that story and those characters but it is so badly written that there's almost nothing I can save, so I decided to rewrite it entirely using the first draft as a guide. I also need to add new scenes that I've thought of, cut out some scenes, add in a few characters, think of a better ending, etc. As of now, my draft 2 has 411 words. I hope I can finish it before January 26, when I'm travelling to Italy.

Good to you all with your goals!

Um, I'm not sure if I count, exactly, but I want in on the post-NaNo motivation/commitment.

Why I'm not sure if I count: my NaNovel, quite honestly, is lame and sucks. The idea is okay, I think, but I don't think it's any good, and I mean beyond the inherent suckishness of a first draft. It was a giant step outside my comfort zone in writing and I'm proud of that. But... I'm scrapping the whole thing and starting over with only a 472-word semi-related dream. The main character dreamed she was talking to her dead boyfriend. And I can't stop thinking how cool it would be if that had actually happened, and she could actually talk to her dead boyfriend while she was dreaming. I feel a little bad about ignoring the 50,000+ words I wrote, but I feel really good about pulling my characters back into my usual speculative fiction. I'm hoping the fourth total rework of the plot of these characters (NaNo was the third) will be the winning one.

Anyway, my goal is to get an outline hashed out by the end of Christmas break (Jan. 2nd).

Ahh, I definitely need a club like this! I've had a number of unsuccessful editing attempts in the past. This one is starting off on a very nice foot, but I know the only way I'll actually get through it will be by the support of wonderful other writers like all of you :).

My plot was fairly solid this year, and though my characters have fairly solid foundations, they didn't show through in the prose as well as I'd hoped. So, I'm going one page at a time, cutting the poor parts and elaborating where necessary (which is most places, as I reached 50k only by breezing over anything that was too hard to write at the time).

My goal is to have draft 2 finished in early March, and only then will I send it out to my trusted friends for a nice solid outside-eye critique. Hopefully, they won't find any major plot holes or demand massive re-writes, because I'd like to have a third draft based on their reviews done by late may or early June. Then I'll order my proof copy from CreateSpace! If the proof copy looks ok, I will probably self-publish. I like this book a lot, but I don't think it's very marketable to a professional publisher, so I'll just use it as a resume booster :)