Drafting and Editing a Hartmouth Horrors Novella

This Monday morning, my mind is still on my current work in progress. There’s a fair way to go yet, but the wheels are well and truly in motion now. And it’s those wheels, or my drafting and editing process, that I want to talk about. Is it a unique approach? Will it suit every self-pub writer? I doubt it. But if it helps just one, I’ll consider this worthwhile.

The first step, once I’ve designed the cover and roughed out the blurb, is to get started on draft one, and I’m happy with about 250 words a day, though I may write as many as 1,000 once in a while. Those words get a quick edit at the end of each session and again at the start of the next, and a couple of times a month I’ll go through the whole thing from the very first page.

Next, when draft one is complete and I’ve edited one more time from start to finish, I’ll send a copy to alpha readers, incorporate their feedback as and when it comes in, then put that draft on ice.

After about a month, I’ll start draft two, changing the font—which gives the brain a helping hand in looking at the whole thing afresh—and editing no more than 2,000 words a day, with frequent short breaks. This process usually involves fixing any repetitions, finding more elegant phrasings, and adding in minor details, including any last-minute flashes of inspiration.

Once I’m happy with draft two and have done a final, out-loud read through, a copy goes to beta readers, whose feedback usually leads to minor tweaks, the fixing of any typos, and so on. And again, once those changes are incorporated, that draft gets put on ice.

A few weeks later, now on the closing straight, I’ll start the final draft. Again I choose a new font, then read aloud up to 2,000 words a day, making a minor change or correction here and there as I go along. And once that’s done, I put the manuscript on an e-reader and do a final read through.

By this point the story is ready to go to ARC readers as an ePub or PDF, and once in a while, someone might drop me a line to point out a stray punctuation mark or typo that slipped through the net. And there we have it, drafting and editing a Hartmouth Horrors novella from start to finish.

As you can see, the process is a bit slow and laborious, especially having to put successive drafts on ice, but touch wood, it has enabled me to self-publish books that have been praised for their quality. Maybe it can work for you too, either in whole or in part.

And that’s my penny’s worth for today. Until next week, happy writing to you all.