Beyond the First Draft: One Revision or Multiple Passes?

It’s no secret—I’m currently working on the second draft of Ransome’s Honor. There are three major issues that needed to be addressed: POV characters (as in, how many and when they’re introduced), better development of the romance between William and Julia, and word count.

In reading my crit partners’ wonderful comments on the last round of chapters (still early chapters), I realized—my second draft will not be a final manuscript. Because I need to focus so much on the structure of introducing one POV character ten chapters earlier, making another POV character into a secondary character in this one (and changing her relationship to two of the remaining POV characters), cutting one event at which a few important things happened/were said, etc., I’ve come to the decision that I can’t worry about word count right now—especially since I’m still writing new scenes to weave the story and characters together better.

This is also the first time I’ve had it critiqued. In the earliest version of the story (when I thought it was going to be a single novel), I did have a few chapters critiqued by school crit partners. But since I moved away from that direction, I wrote the entire thing without submitting it to anyone for review (though many did read it as I wrote it). Starting the second draft, I went through several versions of the first three chapters, writing a couple of new scenes, and then moving things around until characters were introduced in a way that really worked. In doing this, though, I’ve managed to add almost a full chapter—I’m pulling in elements from the old chapter eight into the new chapter nine. Granted, I know I’m getting rid of an event, so that will cut down on word count some, but I think one of the reasons I’ve been having so much trouble gearing up to work on revisions is because I knew I was failing in one of the areas I was supposed to be working on.

Finally, last night, I got it. I can’t worry about word count on this round. I have to focus on structure and story. I have to make sure that the right scenes are in the right place, told from the right POV, and I have to make sure that the romance storyline works and resonates with readers.

So, I’ve asked my critique partners to get out their highlighters—well, to use the highlight feature in Word when they crit my chapters going forward. I’ve asked them to highlight words/phrases/backstory, etc., that they feel can be eliminated to tighten the narrative without losing the tone or any information that is important for setting up what comes in books two and three. That way, when I finish the second draft, I’ll have a much easier time focusing on what needs to be done in the third draft: tightening, polishing, finalizing.

What about you? How many drafts do you need before you feel like you’ve arrived at a “polished” stage? (Notice, I didn’t say “final”—are they ever “final”?)