Old Manuscript Revival: Day 3, Rebuilding

(Old Manuscript Revival - Beginning the editing frenzy) (Old Manuscript Revival: Day One, Diving in for Successful Plot Surgery) 
(Old Manuscript Revival: Day Two, Wielding the proverbial axe)

(Yes, I know how late this is - my schedule seemed to explode in my face over the last week)

Full disclosure: I haven't been able to work on my editing adventure much in the past week, and probably won't get another big chunk of time to again for another week or two. That said, at this point I feel I have done enough to write the conclusion to my revision guide.

Last time I talked to you all, I had just finished slashing through pages and pages of dreaded first draft with a merciless red pen. I cut away all that was not needed, and outlined chapters to fill the gaps. My next step was to take the pile of ashes I had after my demolition spree back to my computer and build it back up into something better.

After I cut out the bits of my manuscript I had deemed useless, I had about 3/4 of my original word count. When talking to other authors, I have heard, for the most part, that they struggle to keep their word count under 100k+ in their first drafts, and they end up pretty much done after they cut out those big chunks as they revise. However, I am not one of those people. When I write a first draft, I tend to create a skeleton that I go back and add substance to. When I wrote EOA, I barely had the need to delete at all, and most of my revision process was adding detail where it was lacking. The old manuscript is a different story. I did not have an outline for it when I first wrote it, so the bare bones ended up deformed. In order to get to the building up stage, I had to first rebuild the foundation.

Now I am essentially in the middle of a massive rewrite to get the old manuscript in working order. Because of other commitments and The Corpus Chronicles Book 2 deadlines (yes, it's going to be here soon!), I probably won't be able to conclude this project for a while. Nonetheless, it is my opinion that the first round of edits on a rough draft should not take more than a week if you have been able to dedicate an adequate amount of time to it. If you have been editing for months and have not sent yet sent off your project to an editor or beta readers, I would advise you to reconsider your motives and think about taking that leap.

Happy word murdering to you all.

Esha