On Second Drafts

Writing a first draft can take over your life.
(This is particularly so if it is done in way I wrote Ron the Body, i.e. going from page one to the end with no idea where you are going or what will happen along the way.)
Writing a first draft is a form of exploration and play, in which characters you’ve created are set loose in challenging situations and you, writing, try your damnedest to keep up with them and stay on top of them and second-guess them and occasionally prod them back in the direction of the interesting stuff. Your head gets all full of this stuff, all the time. You start dreaming elements of your story and in a sense it becomes real to you. It may be a model world inside your head, but then again you also experience and understand the real world by making a model of it inside your head. Anyway, it’s fun. I love this stage of writing. Writing the first draft of something is like actually being inside a story.
Second drafts? They be different. In a second draft, you already have the story. You’re digging through it, rearranging it, chopping bits out and putting new bits in, constantly weighing up what certain elements bring to the tale, what effect a cut or replacement or expansion would offer. How does it feel to read? How are the characters perceived? Is it communicating what it needs to communicate? It’s also fun. I love this stage of writing too, but it is very different. Writing the second draft of something is like being inside a giant and massively complex sudoku puzzle, erasing and checking and erasing again as you try and get the damn thing to have the right balance of numbers. Equal parts fascinating and frustrating, but always compelling.
(There are no third or later drafts; those are just snapshots of the second draft process with numbers written on the front.)
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Second draft is nearly done.