Stuart Horwitz's Advice on Finishing Your Book In Three Drafts

Courtesy of Jane Friedman's indispensable blog for writers, this post adapted from Stuart's book of the same title, How To "Finish Your Book In Three Drafts" has some really good advice in it.

Even the idea of calling each draft a different name offers the value of having the right mindset for wherever you are in the process. He calls:

Draft 1 - Messy Draft
Draft 2 - Method Draft
Draft 3 - Polished Draft

I also thought Stuart's list of questions for your beta readers included some stunningly obvious ones that have never occurred to me to ask… but I will now!

Things like: "What scenes do you remember the best?"

and

"Which parts did you want to skip?"

and

"Where did you feel there was an emotional payoff?"

Well worth reading, whichever draft you're currently on…

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee